BX  9178  .R35  V5 
Reid,  James,  1877- 
The  victory  of  God 


THE  VICTORY   OF  GOD 
Rev.  JAMES  REID,  m.a. 


1  ritL  (     OCT 

VICTORY  OF  GOD 

REV.  JAMES  REID,  M.A. 

MINISTER  OF  ST.  ANDREW'S  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 
EASTBOURNE 


NEW  >iSJr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


CONTENTS 


FAOS 


The  Victory  of  God  in  the  Disasters  of  Life        i 

/  The  Gospel  of  the  Resurrection            .  .       la 

Perfect  through  Suffering          .            •  •       ^3 

The  Incomplete  Virtue  of  Resignation  .       35 

The  Key  to  Experience    .            .            .  .48 

>  How  God  brings  Men  to  Judgment        ,  .      60 

.  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  !            •            •  •       73 

>  The  Overcoming  of  Death  .  ,  ,  S6 
The  Christian  Spirit  in  Action  .  .  .96 
An  Eclipse  of  Faith  .  .  •  .108 
The  Tyranny  of  Things    .            .            •  ,121 

>  How  Christ  wins  His  Way  .  .  .134 
Masterless  Men  .  .  •  •  •  i47 
The  Mystery  of  Temptation  ,  .  ,161 
The  Duty  of  holding  Together.  .  -173 
The  Call  of  Christ  and  our  Daily  Calling  .  185 
The  Testing  Hour  of  Liberty     .            .  ,     199 

>  The  Triumph  of  Faith      .            .            .  .211 

The    Troubled    Life    and    the    Untroubled 

Heart    ......     223 


▼ 


VI 


THE  VICTORY  OF  GOJ) 


When  the  Brook  dries  up 
Peace  through  Sincerity  . 
The  Remaking  of  Manhood 
Victorious  Gladness 
The  Last  Stand  of  Faith 
Traffic  and  Discovery 


rAGB 

235 

247 

259 

271 

283 

396 


THE   VICTORY  OF   GOD 


THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD  IN  THE 
DISASTERS  OF  LIFE 

"  And  Joseph  said,  Fear  not :  for  am  I  in  the  place  of  God  ?  Bu 
as  for  you,  ye  thought  evil  against  me ;  but  God  meant  it  imt* 
good,  to  bring  to  pass,  as  it  is  this  day,  to  save  much  people  alive. "- 
Gen.  1.  19,  20. 

From  his  youth  upwards  we  recognize  in  Joseph  tt 
man  with  a  great  soul.  He  has  all  the  marks  of  it 
He  never  falls  beneath  his  best.  He  is  always  the. 
same,  whether  you  meet  him  in  a  prison  or  in  a  palace. 
His  circumstances,  whatever  they  may  be,  become  a 
background  for  his  qualities,  as  the  night  becomes  a 
background  for  the  stars.  In  a  moment  of  blindi.ig 
temptation  he  is  the  soul  of  chivalry.  In  a  prison, 
where  he  was  kept  for  years,  his  greatness  makes  its 
mark,  and  he  comes  to  the  front.  In  the  national 
crisis  in  Egypt,  when  they  are  faced  with  famine,  he 
takes  the  situation  in  hand  and  saves  the  country. 
The  stiffest  test  of  a  really  great  soul  is  the  hour  of 
prosperity.  "It  takes  a  steady  hand  to  carry  a  full 
cup."  Perhaps  that  is  the  reason  why  God  often 
sends  with  the  success  that  may  come  to  us,  some- 
thing to  humble  us,  to  steady  us,  to  keep  us  alive  to 
Him,  and  open  to  the  movings  of  His  spirit.  In  any 
case  prosperity  only  emphasizes  the  sterling  quality 
of  Joseph.  In  this  hour  which  our  story  describes, 
his  greatness  outshines  itself.     That  is  the  only  way 


2  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

to  put  it ;  it  outshines  itself  and  reveals,  behind  him 
and  through  him,  the  face  of  God. 

It  might  have  been  a  tempting  moment  for  many 
another  man.  His  brothers  were  absolutely  in  his 
power.  His  father,  for  whom  he  had  a  tremendous 
affection,  was  dead,  and  no  longer  there  to  protect 
them  or  appeal  for  tenderness.  They  had  all  come 
back  from  the  funeral  wondering  how  it  was  going 
to  be  with  them  now,  when  there  was  no  one  to 
stand  between  them  and  the  wind  of  their  ill-desert. 
A.nd  they  came  cringing  to  Joseph,  whining  for 
kindly  treatment.  It  takes  a  great  man  to  forget  the 
wrongs  of  youth  when  the  iron  entered  into  the  soul, 
yet  Joseph  did  it.  It  takes  a  greater  man  to  con- 
fess to  those  who  have  wronged  him  that  the  injury 
they  did  turned  out  to  his  advantage,  yet  Joseph 
did  that.  "  Fear  not,"  he  said,  "  am  I  in  the  place  of 
God  ?  As  fbr  you,  ye  thought  evil  against  me  ;  but 
God  meant  it  unto  good,  to  save  much  people  alive." 

Two  motives  toward  magnanimity  are  suggested 
here,  two  things  that  helped  Joseph  to  forgive,  and 
it  is  well  that  in  days  like  these  we  should  get  hold 
of  them.  For  magnanimity  to-day,  as  then,  may  be 
the  pivot  on  which  our  future  turns ;  and  a  day  like 
this  the  background  against  which  God  is  giving  us 
the  chance  to  reveal  our  souls.  One  of  these 
motives  which  powerfully  moved  Joseph  was  that 
God  was  at  work  upon  those  who  had  injured  him. 
"Am  I  in  the  place  of  God,  that  I  should  take 
revenge?"  It  was  as  if  he  said :  This  work  of  pun- 
ishment is  none  of  my  business.  It  is  a  perilous 
position  for  any  man  to  take  up  that  he  is  the 
instrument  of  the  judgment  of  God.  There  are 
crimes  that  are  far  too  big  for  us  to  assess.      God 


IN  THE  DISASTERS  OF  LIFE  3 

is  working  out  there   beyond   us,  in  the   hearts  of 
those  who  have  wronged  us  as  well  as  in  our  own. 
His  mills  are  grinding  out  resistlessly  the  judgments 
of  righteousness.     The  justice  of  God  is  a  net  from 
which   no   evil-doer   can   escape.      George    Eliot   in 
Romola  gives  us  a  terrible  picture  of  a  man  tracked 
down    by    his    sin.      The    father   he   had    wronged 
becomes  possessed  by  a  passion  of  hate,  whose  haunt- 
ing persistence  turns  the  blood  cold.     It  is  a  terrible 
thing  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  hate  like  that.     There 
is  only  one  thing  more  terrible,  and  that  is  to  be  the 
hater  himself.     For  hate  desolates  both  wronged  and 
wrong-doer.     But  the  justice  of  God  is  far  more  sure 
and  unerring,  for  it  is  the  justice  of  love,  a  love  that 
will  not  let  men  go,  but  follows  them  still  through  all 
the  wandering  mazes  of  their  flight  from  it,  till  it 
brings  them  face  to  face  with  sin,  that  it  may  bring 
them  to  redemption.     It  is  this  vision  of  God  behind 
the  scenes  that  calms  the  heart  and  takes  away  the 
restless  heat  of  rancour  and  revenge.     When  a  man  is 
sure  of  God  and  has  seen  a  vision  of  the  love  which 
is  justice,  his  soul  is  swept  clean  of  all   bitterness. 
Has  not  the  time  come  for  us  to  think  of  our  late 
foes  with  something  of  Joseph's  spirit  ?     Reparation 
is  right  and  just,  but  is  not  the  craving   to  make 
Germany  suffer,  in  many  cases  another  form  of  faith- 
lessness towards  God  and  the  moral  forces  of  life  ? 
When  we  remember  Edith  Cavell's  heroism  it  is  well 
to  remember  her  magnanimity.     "  This  I  would  say, 
standing  before  God  and  eternity,  we  must  have  no 
hatred  or   bitterness  toward  any  one."      "Standing 
before  God  and   eternity."      That  is   where   Joseph 
stood — before  God  and  eternity,  seeing  the  mighty 
sweep  of  the  moral  forces  which  are  the  nature  of 


4  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

things.  And  it  was  because  he  saw  God  working  in 
and  through  things,  that  he  was  able  to  forget  the 
past  and  put  it  behind  him.  "  Fear  not,"  he  said, 
"  am  I  in  the  place  of  God  ?  " 

But  another  thing  made  it  easy  for  him  to  lay 
aside  the  past  and  rise  above  the  pettiness  of  a  puny 
revenge.  He  had  seen  how  God  was  handling  the 
wrongs  he  had  suffered,  to  make  them  work  together 
for  good.  He  had  been  cruelly  treated  by  his 
brothers,  taken  a  helpless  youth  and  sold  into  slavery, 
but  that  wrong  did  not  stand  alone  in  his  mind.  It 
had  become  the  vital  link  in  a  chain  of  events  which 
had  made  him  Prime  Minister  of  Egypt.  He  saw 
again  through  the  mist  of  years  his  father's  broken 
heart  as  he  bowed  his  head  to  the  inevitable  and 
looked  into  a  grave.  But  that  picture  did  not  stand 
alone.  For  that  mysterious  fate  that  snatched  away 
Jacob's  son,  swung  back  in  his  old  age  to  rescue  him 
from  starvation,  and  bring  him  to  the  proudest  day 
of  his  life.  God  was  working  ceaselessly,  taking  the 
savage  wrongs  and  building  them  up  into  the  structure 
of  a  mighty  purpose  for  Joseph  and  for  the  world. 
Can  you  wonder  that  his  soul  was  lit  with  gratitude 
and  worship  which  swept  all  bitterness  clean  out  of 
his  life?  It  did  not  abate  in  his  mind  one  jot  of  his 
brothers*  sin.  They  had  done  it  and  done  it  deliber- 
ately. They  were  no  mere  puppets  in  the  hands  of 
a  master  who  made  them  dance  to  his  tune.  They 
were  no  mere  helpless  tools  in  the  giant  grip  of  God. 
They  were  men  who  thought  out  their  sin  and 
deliberately  carried  out  their  design.  It  was  not 
God's  will  that  they  should  wrong  their  brother  for 
his  good.  They  sinned  against  their  brother  and  they 
sinned  against  God.     But  God  took  the  wrong  they 


IN  THE  DISASTERS  OF  LIFE  5 

did  and  used  it  for  His  purpose,  adapting  it,  out  of  His 
loving  power,  to  His  great  design.  Against  the  back- 
ground of  their  treachery,  dark  and  bloody  as  it  was, 
there  shone  out  a  victorious  love,  riding  upon  the  storm 
and  triumphing  through  the  catastrophe.  "  Ye  meant 
evil  unto  me ;  but  God  meant  it  unto  good,  to  bring 
to  pass  as  it  is  this  day,  to  save  much  people  alive." 

Now  does  not  this  experience  of  Joseph  throw  a 
wonderful  light  upon  the  darkness  which  shrouds 
many  a  life  to-day?  There  is  a  problem  which  is 
ever  with  us,  the  problem  of  the  evil  of  the  world  and 
the  goodness  of  God.  Sometimes  it  sleeps  for  a 
while,  but  again  and  again  it  awakens  and  tears  at 
the  vitals  of  some  sensitive  soul.  How  can  the  evil 
of  our  life  be  reconciled  with  the  goodness  of  God  ? 
Why  has  He  allowed  this  thing  which  has  happened 
to  us  to  come  to  pass  ?  Why  has  He  permitted  this 
wrong,  this  sickness,  this  accident,  this  savage  crime, 
which  has  broken  into  our  happiness?  There  is  a 
whole  host  of  problems  here  which  are  too  deep  for 
us.  But  there  is  light  in  this  word  of  Joseph.  The 
root  of  the  trouble  for  many  people,  when  we  come 
to  look  into  it,  is  a  wrong  view  of  Providence.  We 
are  still  living  in  Old  Testament  days,  when  the 
blessing  of  God  was  bound  up  with  prosperity  and  a 
shallow  sort  of  happiness.  We  think  of  Providence 
as  a  power  of  love  which  looks  after  us  as  a  mother 
looks  after  her  toddling  child,  and  keeps  it  out  of 
harm's  way.  We  forget  that  we  are  not  children  any 
more,  but  men  and  women  whom  God  is  training  to 
play  a  big  part  somewhere,  and  training  to  give  Him 
back  a  love  which  shall  be  strong  and  independent 
and  worthy  of  His  own.  That  means  a  hard  school 
and  a  long  schooling.     What  a  tremendous  thing  is 


6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

this  love  of  His — a  thing  so  wonderful  that  it  will 
use  every  kind  of  means  to  make  us  what  we  are 
able  to  be,  even  the  graving  tool  of  pain  and  the 
hammer  blows  of  misfortune — a  love  which  can 
adapt  anything  in  the  experience  of  such  a  world  as 
this  to  its  great  designs ! 

One  thing  too  we  must  be  clearer  about,  and  that 
is  God's  relation  to  the  evil  that  happens  to  us.  A 
good  many  people  have  the  fixed  idea  that  it  is 
God  who  is  directly  behind  all  that  comes  to  them. 
"  God  took  him  "  they  will  say  when  their  child  dies 
through  accident  or  disease,  and  they  either  resign 
themselves  to  what  they  think  the  will  of  God  in 
a  resignation  which  brings  peace,  even  at  the  cost 
of  truth;  or  else  they  become  bitter  and  pettish, 
thinking  hard  thoughts  of  God,  as  if,  somehow,  He 
need  not  have  done  this  if  He  had  had  a  little  more 
love  or  been  a  little  more  attentive  to  their  case. 
There  is  a  half-truth  here  when  a  mother  says 
of  her  dead  boy,  "  God  took  him."  God  took  him, 
indeed,  but  only  when  death  had  released  him,  but 
that  is  not  to  say  that  God  engineered  the  cause 
which  killed  him.  Calamities  come  in  many  ways. 
Sometimes  they  come  through  sheer  accident  —  a 
storm  at  sea,  a  passing  sickness,  and  the  like.  But 
when  we  look  into  these  things,  what  are  they? 
They  are  just  the  other  side  of  the  privilege  and  the 
joy  of  living  in  such  a  world  as  this.  It  is  just  the 
possibility  of  joy  that  brings  the  possibility  of  pain. 
If  we  had  no  nerves  which  could  throb  with  exquisite 
pain  we  could  never  thrill  with  exquisite  joy.  If 
there  were  no  spice  of  risk  in  life  there  would  be  no 
zest  of  adventure.  Two  years  ago  a  brave  airman 
flew   out   across   the   wide   spaces   of   the   Atlantic, 


IN  THE  DISASTERS   OF  LIFE  7 

making  the  first  attempt  to  cross.  Had  he  succeeded 
it  would  have  been  a  triumph,  which  would  have  set 
the  type  dancing  in  all  our  newspapers.  What  made 
the  possibility  of  triumph,  but  just  the  chance  of 
death  lurking  in  these  wide  spaces  ?  It  is  a  glorious 
world  we  live  in ;  and  the  sickness,  and  the  risk,  and 
♦he  calamities  which  happen  by  sea  and  land,  are  the 
price  we  pay  for  the  privilege  of  vital  living. 

And  there  is  evil  which  comes  through  the  sin  and 
malice  of  others   or  their   callousness    and    neglect. 
Are  we  going  to  make  God  responsible  for  these? 
If  a  nurse  is  careless  of  her  patient,  shall  we  blame 
God  for  his  death  ?     If  a  surgeon's  hand  is  unsteady, 
shall  we  accuse  God  of  callousness  ?     If  a  nation  for- 
gets the  duty  of  neighbourliness  and  grows  big  with 
lust  of  power,  and  fills  the  air  with  poison  gas,  and 
wrecks  the  earth  with  high  explosives,  shall  we  call 
it  an  act  of  God  ?     When  Joseph's  brothers  sold  him 
into  slavery,  was  it  God's  doing  or  God's  will  ?     The 
injury  others  have  the  power  to  do  us  is  the  price  we 
pay  for  those  social    relationships  which  make  the 
world  fragrant  when  they  are  sweet  and  loving,  and 
poison    it   with   bitterness    when    they   break   down. 
When  these  things  are  done  you  can  be  sure  of  this, 
they  are  done  in  defiance  of  God's  will.     They  are 
not   God's  original  way.     They  are  not  God's  plan. 
They  are  done  in   spite  of  the  pleading  voices  and 
ruiding  light  within,  by  which  God  seeks  to  win  men 
to  the  higher  way.     And  when  they  are  done,  they 
are  part  of  a  Cross  which  God  carries  in   His  heart, 
the  Cross  of  love  resisted,  of  righteousness  defied,  of 
truth  dishonoured.     They  are  the  currents  of  human 
passion  which  run  athwart  God's  gracious  will,  and 
threaten  shipwreck  to  His  creation.     And  God's  load 


8  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

is  big  enough  to  carry  without  adding  to  it  ouf 
reproach  or  our  complaints.  If  only  we  could  grasp 
tltat,  would  it  not  awaken  a  new  desire  to  come  to 
God's  side,  to  help  Him  with  what  strength  we  have, 
against  the  foes  that  darken  His  universe  ? 

But  there  is  another  thing  we  need  to  grasp,  and 
this  is  the  point,  God  is  not  helpless  amid  the  wreck- 
age of  His  plans.  The  world  is  no  derelict  ship. 
Our  broken  lives  are  not  lost  though  they  have  been 
driven  from  their  course.  God's  love  is  working  still, 
and  He  comes  in  and  takes  the  wrong  that  was  done 
and  the  calamity  that  came,  no  matter  how,  and  uses 
them  victoriously,  working  out  His  wonderful  plan  of 
love.  That  is  God's  victory.  He  is  always  master 
of  the  situation.  There  are  no  second  bests  with 
God  for  the  man  who  puts  his  broken  life  into  His 
hands.  There  is  infinite  resourcefulness  in  the  Al- 
mighty love.  There  is  a  divine  ingenuity  in  the  grace 
of  God.  "  Ye  thought  evil  against  me;  but  God  meant 
it  unto  good,  to  bring  it  to  pass  as  it  is  this  day." 

History  is  full  of  examples  of  this  very  miracle  of 
the  victorious  Love.  How  many  lives  have  been 
redeemed  from  failure  into  a  splendid  success !  Here 
is  a  woman  whose  life  has  been  crippled  by  sorrow, 
and  she  becomes  the  foundress  of  a  hospital.  Here 
is  a  man  whose  career  is  blasted  by  blindness,  and  he 
gives  himself  up,  body  and  soul,  to  work  for  the  blind 
as  if  he  had  been  equipped  for  this  very  hour  and 
this  very  work.  Sir  Arthur  Pearson  has  written  a 
fascinating  book  upon  St.  Dunstan's.  He  calls  it 
Victory  over  Blindness.  His  work  is  indeed  a  victory, 
not  only  for  thousands  whom  he  has  lifted  from  de- 
spair into  a  new  life,  but  for  himself  also — and  behind 
all,  for  God.     Could  any  other  man  have  done  the 


IN  THE  DISASTERS  OF  LIFE  9 

work  he  has  done  ?  Could  his  life  have  been  lived 
to  such  purpose  if  he  had  kept  the  divine  gift 
of  eyesight?  Who  can  tell?  No  one  will  dare 
to  say  the  calamity  was  predestined,  but  things 
being  as  they  are,  God  took  the  situation  in  hand. 
The  result  is  nothing  less  than  a  victory  of  God, 
shaping  a  calamity  into  an  equipment,  opening  out 
a  cul-de-sac,  a  dead-end,  into  a  field  of  glorious 
service,  for  which  there  was  no  other  opening,  and 
setting  the  man  into  it  wonderfully  gifted  with 
sympathy  and  appeal.  Or  here  is  Paul,  taken  by 
cruel  hands,  which  would  have  crushed  him  as  they 
would  have  crushed  a  fly,  and  flung  into  a  prison 
at  Rome ;  and  he  makes  that  prison  a  pulpit  from 
which  his  words  resound  through  Europe.  It  was 
not  God  who  shut  him  in  that  prison.  But  it  was 
God  who  used  that  prison. 

And,  of  course,  there  is  the  supreme  example,  the 
Cross  of  Christ  Himself.  I  remember  being  at  a 
camp  meeting  where  questions  were  invited  on 
religious  problems,  and  a  man  immediately  spoke  up. 
It  was  the  old  question.  "  How  is  it,"  he  asked, 
"that  the  Bible  tells  us  that  Judas  betrayed  Christ 
and  condemns  him  for  betraying  Christ,  and  yet  the 
Bible  also  says  that  Christ,  in  dying,  fulfilled  the  plan 
of  salvation  ?  Was  Judas  a  mere  tool  ? — then  why 
was  he  condemned  ;  or  was  he  a  deliberately  treacher- 
ous sinner? — then  how  could  his  treachery  be  in  the 
plan  of  God  ?  "  You  see  the  difficulty.  Joseph  found 
out  the  answer  long  ago.  It  is  the  victory  of  love. 
That  love  of  God  took  up  the  treachery  of  Judas  and 
the  cruelty  of  men  defying  love,  and  made  them  the 
means  of  a  sacrifice  by  which  love  conquers  the  world. 
They  meant  it  unto  evil  against  Him.    It  was  not  God's 


10  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

will  that  they  should  do  it.  Let  us  get  rid  of  that 
thouf,^ht.  It  was  God's  agony.  It  was  God's  cruci- 
fixion ;  but  God  meant  it,  shaped  it,  redeemed  it 
unto  good  to  save  much  people  alive. 

But  there  is  a  final  point  we  must  notice.  This 
victory  of  God  does  not  always  happen.  It  is  not 
inevitable.  Before  you  can  understand  it,  you  have 
to  think  of  Joseph  and  see  the  kind  of  man  he 
was.  If  Joseph  had  got  bitter,  if  he  had  said  to 
himself  when  he  was  wronged,  that  it  was  useless 
trying  to  do  anything  with  his  life  which  had 
been  so  shamefully  marred,  he  would  have  ended 
his  days  a  slave.  There  are  people  who  are  the 
sport  of  trouble,  and  have  gone  under  just  because 
they  have  taken  the  bitter  and  pettish  attitude  to 
life,  or  have  lost  heart,  or  have  given  up  trying  to 
make  anything  out  of  it  There  are  plenty  of  rocks 
around  for  a  ship  whose  captain  has  left  the  bridge 
because  he  has  been  driven  out  of  his  course.  But 
Joseph  stood  up  to  his  trouble,  and  kept  his  faith 
clear,  and  his  life  clean  towards  God.  He  kept  him- 
self in  touch  with  the  Almighty  love,  linked  himself 
up  with  the  Almighty  will,  and  looked  for  chances  of 
helping  out  the  purpose  he  was  sure  God  still  had 
for  him.  And  that  alertness,  that  faith,  that  willing- 
ness to  co-operate  with  God  and  to  make  the  best  of 
every  situation  because  he  knew  God  could  help  him 
make  the  best  of  it,  were  the  means  by  which  God's 
love  at  last  made  him  what  he  became.  If  God  is  to 
be  victorious  through  our  broken  lives,  we  must  help 
Him  all  we  can.  We  must  put  ourselves  into  His 
hands.  We  must  rise  to  the  call  of  His  purpose  at 
every  turn  that  offers.  We  must,  in  fact,  take  every- 
thing as  if  it  came  from  Him  and  see  in  everything 


IN  THE  DISASTERS  OF  LIFE  1 1 

the  workings  of  His  love.     For,  indeed,  everything 
does  become  the  working  of  love  when  we  put  life 
into  the  hands  of  God.     That  is  the  glorious  fact. 
Everything  that  comes  to  us   becomes    mighty  for 
love's  own  designs  in  the  hands  of  God.     That  out- 
look  changes  everything.     It   changes  the  effect   of 
trouble    upon     ourselves.       It     makes    it    beautiful. 
Some    one   once  said   to  a  man  whose    body   was 
crippled  by  a  disease  of  childhood,  "  Affliction  does 
so  colour  the  life."    "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  but  I  propose  to 
choose  the  colour."     That  is  the  point.     It  is  ours  to 
choose  the  colour  ;  or,  rather,  it  is  ours  to  choose  the 
Artist,  and  He  chooses  the  colour.     And  wonderful 
beyond  description  is  the  beauty  which  the  genius  of 
Christ  brings  forth  in  us  by  the  tools  of  calamity  and 
sorrow,  when  we  put   life  into    His   hands.      Do   I 
speak  to  any  who  are  weighed  down  by  some  load  of 
grief  or  handicapped  by  some  trial,  who  see  nothing 
before  them  but  the  slow  numbing  which  the  years 
will  bring,  or  the  final  release  of  death  from  a  world 
which  is   all  upset?      Your  one  hope  is  in  linking 
up   your   life  with   this    Almighty  will    of  love   re- 
vealed in  Christ.     The  key  to  this  victory  is  loyalty 
—loyalty  to  the  victorious   and   redeeming  will   of 
love.     As  Mr.  Glutton  Brock  puts  it,  "Salvation  is 
seeing  that  the  Universe  is  good,  and  becoming  a  part 
of  that  goodness";  or.  as  Paul  puts  it,  "All  things 
work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God."     In 
other  words,  those  who  accept  the  purpose  of  God  in 
Christ  and  give  themselves  to  it  in  loyal  faith  and 
service,  find  there  the  secret  of  a  continual  victory— 
a  victory  in  which  life,  with  all  it  holds  of  joy  or  woe, 
becomes   subdued   to   the    mighty  mastery   of  love. 
"  And  this  is  the  victory  that  overcomes  the  world." 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  RESURRECTION 

"  The  God  of  our  fathers  raised  up  Jesus,  whom  ye  slew  and  hanged 
on  a  tiee.  Him  hath  God  exalted  to  be  a  Prince  and  a  Saviour." — Acts 
V.  30. 

The  resurrection  of  Christ  is  the  most  challenging 
fact  of  history.  It  is  a  miracle  of  such  tremendous 
quality  that  all  the  other  miracles  of  the  Gospel 
story  pale  beside  it  into  insignificance.  Time  was 
when  a  preacher  on  Easter  morning  would  have  given 
himself  to  build  up  arguments  for  the  truth  of  the 
resurrection.  And,  indeed,  there  are  many  arguments 
which  could  be  brought  forward.  There  is  the 
argument  of  the  New  Testament  book.  You 
cannot  account  for  this  book  except  by  the  fact  of 
the  resurrection  of  Christ  from  the  dead.  And  there 
is  the  argument  of  the  New  Testament  men.  You 
cannot  account  for  Peter  and  Paul — the  difference 
between  the  men  they  were  and  the  men  they 
became — except  by  way  of  a  miracle,  and  that 
miracle  is  the  miracle  of  Christ  risen.  Their  whole 
life  and  personality  became  what  they  were  because 
their  hearts  were  kindled  by  the  vision  of  the  risen 
(Christ,  as  flame  is  caught  from  flame. 

But  there  is  not  so  much  need  to-day  to  argue 
for  the  resurrection.  The  outlook  of  thinking  men 
has  widened.  Scientific  men  used  to  argue  against 
it.  They  used  to  close  up  the  universe  against  the 
possibility  of  God  and  deny   any  value  to  spiritual 


GOSPEL  OF  THE  RESURRECTION       13 

experience  outside  their  own  explanation.  They  have 
given  up  this  line  of  argument  to-day.  Life  is  far 
too  wonderful  a  thing  for  any  man  to  reduce  it  to  a 
system  and  cry  to  faith,  "Hands  off!"  The  very 
fact  that  some  scientific  men  are  turning  to  spiritual- 
ism with  such  wistfulness  shows  a  new  openness  of 
mind  toward  the  wonders  of  the  spiritual  world. 
We  are  beginning  to  see  that  once  we  admit  the 
fact  of  Christ  and  open  up  our  souls  to  the  kind 
of  being  He  is,  anything  may  happen.  Anything 
may  happen  when  you  are  in  the  presence  of  one 
like  Christ.  Healings  may  happen,  and  the  casting 
out  of  demons,  and  the  opening  of  blind  eyes,  and 
there  is  nothing  so  very  incredible  in  the  fact  that 
Christ  should  rise  from  the  dead. 

What  we  ought  to  be  concerned  about  most  of  all, 
then,  to-day,  is  not  the  truth  of  this  fact  but  the 
meaning  of  this  fact.  What  does  it  mean?  What 
lay  behind  it?  That  was  one  of  the  things  which 
the  apostles,  and  especially  Paul,  set  themselves  to 
think  out.  What  tremendous  power  was  it  that  lay 
behind  the  resurrection  ?  What  was  it  that  was 
happening  there  in  that  sealed  tomb  from  which 
Christ  came  forth  at  last  glorious  in  His  risen  life  ? 
The  answer  the  Bible  gives  us  in  phrase  after  phrase 
is  just  this.  It  was  a  creative  act  of  God.  It  was  a 
new  revelation  of  the  living  power  of  the  living  God. 
That,  it  says  to  us,  is  the  kind  of  God  with  whom  we 
have  to  do.  We  had  learned  something  about 
Him  before.  We  had  learned  that  He  is  a  God 
of  righteousness,  of  purity,  of  truth — of  righteousness 
and  truth  so  unbending  that  Christ  went  to  His 
Cross  rather  than  yield  one  iota  before  the  forces  of 
the  world.      And  we  had  learned  that  He  is  a  God 


T4  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

of  love.     That  is  the  message  of  Calvary.     He  is  a 
God  of  love  to  the  uttermost,  of  love  that  forgives 
the  vilest,  of  love  that  seeks  to  the  very  last  limit, 
and  goes  on  loving  when  everything  seems  hopeless. 
Hut  when    Christ    rose   again    we    learned  this,  that 
this  Spirit  of  righteousness  and  love  is  also  the  secret 
of  power,  able  to  unlock  the  gates  of  death,  and  turn 
the  forces  of  nature  into  an  instrument  of  His  Will. 
This  is  the  final  solution  of  the  discussion  we  have 
been  having  these  last  years  about  might  and  right. 
Now  we  get  it  clear.      They  are  both  one  in    God. 
Go  back  to  God  and  the  source  of  both  is  in   Him. 
Might  is  right,  and  right  is  might,  when  you   strike 
the    fountain    head.       In    the    last   resort   love   and 
righteousness  are  the  only  might,  the  only  omnipo- 
tence.     A  spiritl  ike  that  of  Jesus  holds  the  key  to 
every  prison  house  of  sin  and  suffering.     He  tc^ps  the 
resources  6f  God  by  which  every  stronghold  of  evil 
which  has  mocked  our  puny  science  with  its  impas- 
sive walls,  is  at  last  overthrown.     When  He  steps  into 
the  world,  a  spiritual  factor  comes  into  play  which 
changes  the  whole  situation.     Having  dominion  over 
sin  through  His  fellowship  with  God,  he  had  found 
the  secret  of  dominion  over  disease  and  death.     For 
when   evil  had   done   its    worst   and    its    storm   and 
passion  had  gathered  all  its  forces — social,  military, 
political,  ecclesiastical  —  to   put    Him    to  death,  the 
spirit  of  love  and  righteousness  laid  hold  of  that  broken 
body  in  a  stone-walled  tomb  and  became  triumphant 
and  glorious  in  the  risen  Christ.     "  Whom,  therefore, 
they  slew  and  hanged   on   a   tree,  Him  God   raised 
from  the  dead  and  exalted  to  be  a  Prince  and  a 
Saviour." 

Now  when  the  apostles  set  themselves  to  think 


GOSPEL  OF  THE  RESURRECTION        15 

out  all  the  meaning  of  that  fact,  they  simply  could 
not  find  words  to  put  it  in.  Life  is  not  long  enough 
to  explore  its  riches.  What  may  not  happen  with 
such  a  God  as  that  at  work  in  Christ  ?  Did  you  ever 
think  of  it?  Why  are  we  so  slow  to  believe  in  the 
possibilities  of  the  spiritual  world  ?  Why  are  we  so 
difficult  to  convince  of  a  future  life?  Why  is  it  that 
men  and  women  are  running  to  spiritualism  to-day 
and  coming  back  with  a  handful  of  chaff  and  telling 
the  world  about  "  a  new  revelation  "  ?  Why  is  it  we 
have  so  many  difficulties  and  doubts  about  God 
and  about  His  ways  with  men?  Is  it  not  just 
because  we  have  never  apprehended  the  kind  of 
God  whom  the  New  Testament  reveals?  We  have 
never  opened  our  mind  and  our  imagination  to 
the  God  who  is  revealed  in  the  Cross  and  in  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ.  It  is  a  new  vision  of  God 
we  need.  We  are  far  too  much  occupied  with  our 
ovvn  moods  and  tenses,  our  own  feelings  and  fears 
and  difficulties,  and  all  the  whispered  doubts  and 
objections  of  a  foolish  world,  which  is  saying  "  There 
is  no  God  "  when  what  it  often  means  is  "  There  is 
no  God  for  me."  Life  would  begin  to  blaze  for  us 
with  all  kinds  of  wonders  if  only  we  took  time  to 
steep  our  souls  in  such  a  vision  of  God  as  we  find 
in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  Listen  to  the  apostles 
as  they  look  death  in  the  face.  Listen  to  what  they 
say  of  it  because  they  had  seen  the  glory  of  God  in 
the  face  of  the  risen  Christ.  He  hath  abolished 
death — made  it  of  no  account.  For  them  there  was 
no  such  thing  any  more.  If  they  had  gone  to  one 
of  our  churchyards  to-day,  or  to  the  battlefields  of 
Flanders,  with  all  their  "  teeming  crosses,  row  on 
row,"  what  would  they  have  said  of  it?     Would  they 


1 6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

not  have  said  what  one  of  our  mystics  said  of  a 
certain  city  cemetery,  when  a  friend  remarked  to 
him  how  full  it  was  becoming.  "  Full,"  he  said,  "  it 
is  the  emptiest  place  in  all  England!"  He  hath 
abolished  death.  There  is  nothing  in  Mts  dissolu- 
tion which  can  touch  the  living  spirit,  nothing 
in  it  which  can  stand  between  friend  and  friend. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  which  can  check  the  vital 
energy  of  a  man  who  is  living  with  any  breath  in 
him  of  this  victorious  creative  Spirit  of  God.  "  He 
hath  abolished  death,  and  brought  life  and  immortality 
to  light  through  the  Gospel." 

But  that  did  not  nearly  exhaust  the  meaning  of 
the  resurrection  for  these  disciples.  They  were  more 
interested  in  life  than  in  death.  There  is  a  kind  of 
faith  in  the  resurrection  which  turns  this  life  into  a 
mere  vestibule  to  eternity,  a  corridor  to  heaven 
That  was  not  the  way  in  which  the  apostles  looked 
at  it.  The  resurrection  had  a  meaning  for  life,  and 
it  is  this.  It  meant  the  possibility  of  a  new  life  here 
and  now,  a  risen  life,  a  new  quality  of  being.  They 
saw  how  the  Spirit  of  God  had  come  forth  into  this 
broken  body  and  had  changed  it  and  made  of  it 
somehow — all  marred  and  wounded  as  it  was — a 
vehicle  for  His  Spirit.  And  they  said  to  themselves: 
If  this  is  the  God  with  whom  we  have  to  do,  this  new 
creating  God,  who  lives  in  the  risen  Christ,  what 
manner  of  men  ought  we  to  be,  what  manner  of  men 
is  it  not  possible  for  us  to  be,  what  manner  of  life  is 
it  not  possible  for  us  to  live,  and  what  manner  of 
things  is  it  not  possible  for  us  to  do,  with  such  a  Prince 
and  a  Saviour !  The  world  began  to  palpitate  with 
all  kinds  of  victorious  possibilities.  Life  became 
romantic  with  adventure. 


GDSPEL  OF  THE  RESURRECTION        17 

There  are  three  great  new  hopes  which  rise  from 
this  resurrection  fact  and  meet  us  in  our  world  to-day. 
The  first   is   a  new   hope   for  the    individual,   the 
hope  of  resurrection   to  a  new  quality  of   life.     As 
the   Spirit   of    God    came    into    that    wounded    and 
broken  body  of  Christ,  can  not  the   Spirit  of  God 
come  forth  into  our  lives,  all  stained  and  broken  as 
they  are,  and  raise  them  to  a  new  quality  of  being, 
make  of  them  indeed,  a  new  creation?      This  was 
the  faith  which  Paul  was  always  preaching.     Christ 
rose  again,  he  said.     Do  not  hold  that  far  off  from 
you  as  a  fact  for  some  future  hour  when  God  shall 
call   forth   the   dead.     See  in  it  a    fact   for   to-day. 
Reckon  yourselves  as  dead  unto  sin  and  alive  unto 
God.     Where  did  he  learn  it?     He  learned  it  in  his 
own  experience.     That  was  what  had  happened   to 
him   along   the  Damascus  road.     His   old    life   had 
been  left  behind  like  grave-clothes  in  a  tomb,  and  a 
new  life  had  come  in  like  a  breath  of  God  and  taken 
possession   of    his    nature,   making    of    him   a   new 
creation.     That  too  was  what  had  happened  to  Peter. 
He  had  betrayed  his  Lord.     His  old  life  was  stained 
with  failure.     He  was  heart-broken  with  the  sense  of 
his  own  defeat.     And  when   Christ  rose  again  and 
sent    Him    a    special   message   as   if    nothing   had 
come  between  them,  a  new  life  awoke,  making  him 
the  daring,  devoted,  convincing,  and  steadfast  apostle 
of  the   Crucified,  before   whose   courage   men  were 
astonished  at  the  light  of  Christ  that  shone  in  it. 

This  is  the  message  of  the  resurrection  for  us 
to-day.  It  means  the  possibility  of  a  risen  life  for 
every  man.  It  means  that  God  with  Whom  we  have 
to  do  can  come  into  our  life  as  He  came  in  the 
risen    Christ.      He  can  take  us  as  we  are,  stained 


1 8  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

with  sin,  broken  by  sorrow,  cowed  and  crushed  by 
the  weight  of  circumstance,  and  raise  us  into  newness 
of  life,  so  that  the  very  scars  of  sin  become  purifying 
fires,  and  the  crippling  of  circumstance  becomes  the 
means  of  God's  enabling,  and  the  wounds  of  sorrow 
become  transfigured  with  a  light  which  brings  new 
beauty  out  just  where  the  life  was  marred.  Is  it 
so  strange  after  all  ?  Is  it  so  incredible  ?  The  genius 
of  Michael  Angelo  can  take  a  block  of  marble  out  of 
a  scrap-heap,  spoiled  by  a  bungler  and  cast  aside,  and 
turn  it  into  a  masterpiece,  working  the  very  disfigure- 
ment into  his  design?  Will  the  genius  of  God  do 
less  for  men  than  that?  His  Spirit  in  nature  will 
take  the  mists  that  fill  the  sky  and  shroud  the  world 
in  a  pall  of  gloom,  and  out  of  them  produce  the 
magic-tinted  rainbow.  Can  the  Spirit  of  life  that 
kindled  the  light  in  the  sky  not  kindle  the  light  in 
the  heart?  Can  He  not  take  this  nature  of  ours 
with  all  the  stuff  of  daily  toil  and  traffic,  and  make 
of  it  the  medium  of  a  finer  life,  a  life  spiritual,  eternal, 
beautiful  with  the  beauty  of  Christ,  a  life  radiant  with 
power  and  peace,  springing  from  man's  inner  fount 
of  being,  where  Christ  is  enthroned  as  Prince  and 
welcomed  as  Saviour.  It  is  this  new  life,  Christ- 
governed  and  Christ-created,  for  which  the  world  is 
looking  to  us  to-day.  The  offer  of  this  risen  life 
is  the  message  of  the  Christian  gospel.  "  Whom 
men  slew  and  hanged  on  a  Cross,  Him  hath  God 
raised  from  the  dead  and  exalted  to  be  a  Prince  and 
a  Saviour." 

In  the  second  place  there  is  a  message  of  hope  for 
the  Church.  There  are  many  who  have  lost  hope 
in  the  Church  to-day.  They  sec  her  distracted  by 
divisions  and  overloaded  with  a  mass  of  trivialities. 


GOSPEL  OF  THE  RESURRECTION       19 

They  see  her  crusted  with  convention,  bound  in 
habits  of  thought  which  were  once  a  living  creed,  but 
now  are  grave-clothes  about  her  body.  They  see  her 
blind  and  deaf,  as  it  seems  to  many,  to  the  mightiest 
movements  of  our  time,  and  impotent  to  speak  the 
word  of  life  to  nations  who  war  and  classes  who 
strive.  And  men  are  looking  at  the  Church  as  the 
prophet  of  old  looked  at  the  valley  of  dry  bones  with 
this  question  whispering  at  their  hearts:  Can  these 
bones  live? 

Now  perhaps  the  picture  of  the  Church's  impotence 
is  overdrawn — I  believe  it  is.     There  is  nothing  so 
easy  as  criticism.     The  world  has  never  understood 
how  to  judge  the  real  life  of  the  Spirit  or  where  to 
look  for  the  wind  that  bloweth  where  it  listeth.     Do 
not  let  any  of  us  imagine  that  the  Church  is  going 
to  pieces,  or  that  mankind  will  find  some  other  centre 
of  religious   life.     The  Church  is  not  a  man-made 
institution.     It  is  not  the  product  of  the  club-instinct 
applied  to  religion.     It  is  the  product  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  seeking  and  finding  and  fashioning  a  society 
of  men  and   women,  in  whom   His  redeeming  love 
could  be  more  perfectly  expressed  for  the  saving  of 
the  world  and  the  building  of  His  Kingdom.     How 
does  the  Church  get  her  vitality?      She  gets  it  by 
the  awaking  to  power  of  the  Divine  life  in  her  in  a 
kind  of  resurrection. 

You  remember  what  happened  at  Pentecost? 
Pentecost  was  the  corresponding  miracle  in  the 
Church,  to  that  which  happened  when  God  raised 
Christ  from  the  dead.  It  was  a  resurrection.  The 
members  had  met  together.  They  were  poor,  isolated, 
many  of  them  weak  in  influence,  impotent  as  it 
seemed  against  the  world  of  their  day.     They  had 


20  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

to  keep  the  doors  shut  with  care  for  fear  the  surging 
mob  would  take  it  into  their  heads  to  crush  the  life 
out  of  them,  as  they  had  tried  to  crush  it  out  of  their 
Lord.  And  there  came  upon  them,  the  Scripture 
says,  the  sound  of  a  mighty  rushing  wind  and,  as  it 
were,  tongues  of  fire,  and  sat  upon  each  of  them  ;  and 
they  went  out,  miraculous  personalities,  to  heal  and 
preach,  and  compel  the  world  by  the  sheer  power  of 
their  witness  to  the  acknowledgment  of  God  in  Christ. 
What  was  it  that  had  happened  ?  The  Spirit  which 
rose  in  Jesus  had  made  of  that  humble  company  the 
vehicle  of  His  life.  The  dominant  note  in  their 
minds  was  an  overwhelming  and  all-subduing 
consciousness  of  Christ  as  Lord,  raising  their  whole 
nature  to  its  highest  level,  in  a  response  of  victorious 
energies. 

All  that  is  possible  again.  It  is  the  eternal 
possibility  of  such  a  God  abroad  in  such  a  world  as 
this.  It  is  for  that  resurrection  we  are  waiting. 
Meanwhile  let  us  cast  away  all  depressions  and  lift 
up  hearts  of  hope.  Let  us  take  a  new  look  at  God, 
as  He  is  revealed  in  the  risen  Christ,  and  the  same 
response  of  faith  will  be  awakened ;  for  the  faith 
which  makes  us  mighty  is  no  artificial  creation  of 
our  own  resolve.  It  is  the  natural  response  to  the 
vision  of  God  we  see  in  the  risen  Jesus.  Is  any- 
thing- too  hard  for  such  a  Lord?  Is  it  beyond  the 
power  of  the  Church  to  meet  victoriously  any  evil 
however  deeply  entrenched,  any  crusade  however 
stern,  any  task  however  big?  Is  anything  beyond 
the  resources  of  the  Church  for  whom  God  lives  in 
Christ,  raised  from  the  dead  and  exalted  to  be  a 
Prince  and  a  Saviour? 

But   can  we   not   go   even    further   and   say  that 


GOSPEL  OF  THE  RESURRECTION       21 

there  is  a  message  here  of  hope  for  society,  for  the 
social   order,  in  which  man  is  bound   to   man    and 
nation  to  nation?     At   present   who   shall   describe 
the  order  of  society  as  we  see  it  at  home  and  abroad  ? 
It  is  chaos.     We  think  of  Russia  under  the  heel  of  a 
foul  and  monstrous  tyranny  worse  than  that  of  any 
Czar.     We  think  of  Central  Europe,  of  other  parts 
of  the   world,  frenzied  with   a  fever   in    the   blood. 
We  think  of  the  unrest  at  home.     What  are  we  to 
make  of  it  all  ?     Is  civilization  going  down  into  the 
dust  of  ancient  barbarism  ?     Is  all  this  tract  merely 
neutral  to  God, — this  tract  of  our  social  and  political 
and  industrial  life  ?     Look  back  through  history  and 
what  do  you  see?     You  see  the  Spirit  of  God,  who 
is  the  Spirit  of  life,  seeking  some  means  of  expression 
like  an  artist  seeking  paint  and    canvas.     You  see 
Him  make  man  out  of  the  clay  to  bear  His  image. 
You  see  Him  take  a  race  of  slaves  and  nurse  them 
into   freedom    and    independence   that    they   might 
reveal   His  mind  and  will  to  the  world.     You  see 
Him    coming   into   the   world   in    Christ,   revealing 
Himself  and  His  glory  in  that  life  and  death.     You 
see    Him   taking   new   form    for    His    Spirit   in    the 
glorified    body   of  the   risen  Christ.     You   see   Him 
gathering  the  Church  and   kindling  there  the  flame 
divine  upon  the  altar  of  men's  committed  lives.     Is 
it  conceivable  that  it   should   all  end  there?     Is  it 
conceivable  that  the  process  should  end   before  the 
whole  social  order  in  which  man  lives  with  man  and 
nation  with   nation  becomes   a  body  for  the  Spirit 
of  God  ?     What   does   the    Resurrection    say   to   us 
looking  on  such  a  world  as  this?     Does  it  not  say 
that  there  is  Power,  power  of  infinite  love  and  grace, 
able   to   enter   this    world   and    make   it   beautiful? 


2  2  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

There  is  power  of  love  and  goodwill,  power  of  truth 
and  brotherhood,  by  which  society  may  be  lifted 
out  of  its  frictions  and  hatreds  and  conflicts  into  the 
ways  of  righteousness  and  peace.  When  we  are  at 
the  end  of  our  own  resources  we  are  only  at  the 
beginning  of  our  resources  in  Him,  who  was  raised 
from  the  dead  and  exalted  to  become  a  Prince  and 
a  Saviour. 

A  Prince  and  a  Saviour — that  is  what  we  need 
to-day.  Let  us  dig  deeper  into  our  resources  in 
Him.  Let  us  begin  afresh  to  explore  the  riches  of 
our  inheritance  in  the  glorified  Christ.  A  Prince  and 
a  Saviour!  There  is  infinite  meaning  in  that  com- 
bination. He  rules  and  He  saves.  His  rule  is 
salvation.  He  can  only  save  us  in  the  measure  in 
which  we  accept  His  rule.  His  mastery  is  a  redeem- 
ing bondage,  in  which  we  are  delivered  from  all 
lower  enslavements,  to  become  our  highest  selves,  in 
a  love  which  makes  us  completely  free.  When 
Jacob  Boehme  the  great  mystic  was  dying,  his  ears 
were  attuned  to  the  harmonies  of  heaven.  He 
seemed  to  be  listening  to  a  rapturous  strain  which 
filled  his  soul.  "  Open  the  windows,"  he  cried  with 
his  last  breath,  "and  let  in  more  of  that  music." 
That  is  the  word  for  us  as  the  old  world  dies  around 
us.  Open  the  windows  and  let  in  more  of  that  music 
— the  music  of  the  Easter  hope.  And  let  us  give 
our  souls  to  the  rule  of  that  Saviour  and  we  shall 
see  the  Salvation  of  the  Lord, 


PERFECT  THROUGH  SUFFERING 

"  For  it  became  Him,  for  whom  are  all  things,  and  by  whom  are  all 
things,  in  bringing  many  sons  unto  glory,  to  make  the  Captain  of  their 
salvation  perfect  through  sufferings." — Heb.  ii.  lo. 

One  of  the  standing  difficulties  of  the  early  Church 

was  to  reconcile  the  suffering  of  Christ  and  the  glory 

of  God.     Wherever   the   early  preachers  went   with 

their   doctrine,  they  were  met  with  the   same  taunt 

of  derision.     A  suffering    Messiah,  a  crucified  God  ! 

The  thing  is   impossible.     It   is    a   contradiction   in 

terms.     Who  ever  heard  of  such  a  ridiculous  thing  ? 

The  very  idea  of  a  cross  was  an  affront  to  divinity. 

And  even  the  Christians  were  tempted  to   feel  that 

there  was  something   shameful   about   the   suffering 

of  Jesus,  like  a  point  in  the  story  of  a  great  life  where 

the  hero  has  dipped  down  into  degradation  too  deep 

for  words.     It  was  this  way  of  thinking  against  which 

Paul  flung  his  great  protest  when  he  shouted  out  that 

the  one  thing  which  he  gloried  in  above  all  else,  was 

just  this  dark  and  bloodstained  Cross  of  Christ.     It 

was  this  taunt  which  the  early  Church  had  to  meet. 

At  first  it  was  very  difficult.     It  is  far  easier  to  hold 

up  one's  head  against  a  blow  than  to  face  a  pointed 

finger   of  shame.     The  root  of  the   trouble  was,  of 

course,   their    own    wrong   values.     It   was   in   their 

blood  to  look  on  suffering  as  some  disgraceful  thing, 

which  carries  a  taint  of  evil  or  the  brand  of  weakness. 

23 


24  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

Pain,  for  an  orthodox  Jew,  was  part  of  the  curse  of 
God.  He  could  not  get  it  out  of  his  head  that  if  a 
man  suffered,  it  was  because  God  was  against  him. 
And  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  set  to  work  to  make 
them  feel  that  the  sufferings  of  Christ  did  not  touch 
the  honour  of  God.  "  By  the  grace  of  God,"  he  said, 
"Christ  tasted  death  for  every  man";  and  then,  as 
if  he  saw  a  look  of  surprise  creeping  over  their  faces 
and  a  lifting  of  the  eyebrows  at  this  coupling  of  the 
grace  of  God  with  the  horror  of  Calvary,  he  went  on, 
"  For  it  became  Him,  for  whom  are  all  things,  and  by 
whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing  many  sons  unto 
glory,  to  make  the  Captain  of  their  salvation  perfect 
through  sufferings." 

There  are  two  things  which  he  makes  clear,  with 
one  sweep  of  his  pen,  about  the  sufferings  of  Christ. 
For  one  thing,  they  are  quite  consistent  with  the 
character  of  God.  These  loving  hands  of  the  Father, 
shapii.g  the  life  of  Jesus,  guiding  His  course,  made  no 
mistake  in  the  dark  hour  of  His  suffering.  He  knew 
what  He  was  doing  when  He  steered  that  soul  of 
Jesus  through  those  deep  waters  of  His  agony.  "It 
became  Him,"  says  the  writer.  Nothing  so  expressed 
and  set  forth  with  becoming  glory  the  nature  of  God, 
as  the  suffering  of  Christ  It  was  all  in  the  main  line 
of  His  purpose  of  love.  Calvary  was  no  side  track, 
no  mere  bypath,  into  which  Christ  was  driven  by 
cruel  circumstances  which  were  too  much  for  Him. 
In  such  a  world  as  this,  it  was  the  high  road  of  His 
great  destiny ;  it  was  the  true  course  of  the  Adven- 
turous Love.  God  had  a  big  task  on  hand.  He 
was  bringing  many  sons  into  glory,  and  nothing 
could  achieve  it  but  a  Leader  equipped  through 
pain. 


PERFECT  THROUGH  SUFFERING        25 

The  shameful  view  of  Christ's  suffering  still  lingers. 
In  Mr.  Wells'  portrait  of  his  "  Invisible  King,"  which 
is  only  kingly  in  so  far  as  it  is  borrowed  from  Jesus — 
he  criticises  Christ  for  what  he  calls  His  weakness,  His 
policy  of  non-resistance.  There  he  takes  his  stand 
with  that  multitude  in  the  ancient  and  modern  world 
to  whom  Christ  is  still  "  the  great  misunderstood." 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  that  what  we  call  Christ's 
humiliation  was  His  glorification, — until  our  eyes 
have  been  opened.  God's  glory  is  in  service.  That 
is  what  God  is  —  a  Servant.  He  never  escapes 
from  suffering  even  on  His  throne.  God's  sacrifice 
is  eternal ;  if  the  pain  of  it  is  lost,  it  is  only  lost  by 
being  overcome  by  a  love  in  which  it  is  swallowed 
up,  as  the  big  deep  notes  of  an  organ  are  lost  by 
being  taken  up  into  the  fuller  and  richer  music  of  a 
noble  theme.  Christ  suffered  because  it  is  God's  nature 
to  suffer.  His  suffering  was  a  revelation  of  an  agony 
which  is  part  of  the  creative  and  redeeming  love.  If 
Christ  had  not  suffered,  there  is  something  in  God 
which  would  never  have  been  known,  because  it 
would  never  have  been  uttered.  Some  of  us  have 
stood,  perhaps,  in  a  scientist's  laboratory  and  seen 
him  pass  a  pure  beam  of  white  light  through  the 
crystal  which  breaks  it  up  into  its  many-coloured 
rays.  Without  that  crystal  to  break  it  up,  we  would 
never  have  known  the  light  was  so  radiant.  The 
Cross  of  Christ  is  like  that  crystal  prism.  It  breaks 
up  the  light  of  the  uncreated  love,  and  lets  us  see  the 
myriad-coloured  glory.  But  for  the  suffering  of  Christ 
we  had  never  seen  into  the  wonder  of  that  love.  Like 
the  light,  it  is  all  about  us,  in  trees  and  flowers,  the 
majestic  hills,  and  the  smiling  joys  of  every  day.  But 
beneath  the  smile  of  nature  and  the  gifts  of  happiness, 


26  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

there  is  a  heart  that  breaks  in  pain,  the  heart  of  the 
Eternal  Father.  And  in  the  suffering  of  Christ,  it  is 
isolated,  like  the  great  notes  of  the  organ  when  the 
lighter  strains  are  hushed. 

°In  the  second  place  Christ's  suffering  too  was  part  of 
His  training,  His  fashioning.  It  is  something  without 
which  He  could  not  have  been  Himself  It  was 
necessary  to  His  completeness  of  being.  The  Via 
Dolorosa  was  His  only  path  to  power.  The  words 
are  strong—"  To  make  Him  perfect  through  suffering." 
There  is  a  tendency  of  the  mind,  and  it  has  always 
been  there,  to  look  at  the  spirit  of  Christ  apart  from 
life,  as  if  He  passed  through  the  world  in  a  kind  of 
lofty  independence,  as  an  actor  goes  through  the 
tragic  incidents  of  a  play  without  these  incidents 
really  shaping  his  being,  or  adding  anything  to  his 
character.  We  miss  the  point  of  the  life  of  Christ  if 
we  look  upon  Him  as  a  ready-made  Saviour,  to 
whom  life  had  nothing  to  give.  The  words  are  bold. 
"  Christ  was  made  perfect  by  His  sufferings."  They 
were  an  essential  part  of  His  development  without 
which  He  could  not  have  been  what  He  was.  Christ 
had  to  live  His  life  as  we  live  it;  He  had  to  find  His 
way  about  amid  its  perplexities,  as  we  find  ours;  He 
had  to  meet  its  temptations,  as  we  fight  ours.  His 
nature  had  to  be  moulded  and  His  powers  awakened 
through  the  storm  and  the  stress  of  life.  Life  was  no 
sham  fight  for  Jesus.  It  was  a  real  battle  in  which 
everything  was  at  stake  and  a  real  victory  was  won 
which  changed  the  course  of  history.  He  was  a 
living  part  of  a  living,  struggling  world  on  its  way  to 
God.  "  It  became  Him,  for  whom  are  all  things,  and 
by  whom  are  all  things,  to  make  the  Captain  of  their 
salvation  perfect  through  sufferings." 


PERFECT  THROUGH  SUFFERING        27 

One  result  immediately  springs  from  this  changed 
outlook  on  the  sufferings  of  Christ.     It  is  a  changed 
outlook   on   our   own.      The   moment  we   begin    to 
see  a  glimmer  of  nobleness,  of  some  great  use  of  pain 
in  His  Cross  and  His  Gethsemane,  that  moment  we 
begin  to  see  some  great  uses  in  our  own.     Suffering, 
when  all  is  said  and  done,  is  the   great  problem  of 
the  universe.     It  is  the  one  thing  which,  above  all, 
perplexes  and   troubles  the  religious  mind,  for  it  is 
the  religious  mind  that  feels  it  most.     When  a  man 
begins  to  think  at  all,  he  begins  to  question  the  why 
and  wherefore.     And  there  is  no  cut  and  dry  answer 
ready  to  our  hand.     There  is  no  theoretical  solution 
to  the  problem.     When  all  is  said,  the  deepest  truth 
lies  still  at  the  bottom  of  the  well.     But  there  is  a 
practical  solution,  and  that  is  the  main  point— for  we 
are  not  here  to  understand,  but  to  live.     The  practical 
solution  is  in  Jesus.     He  lived  this  life  of  ours,  faced 
and  bore  incalculable  suffering,  and  still    found  life 
liveable ;  and  what  is  more,  the  Scripture  tells  us  that 
this  suffering  was  an  element  in  the  making  of  His 
Divine  manhood.     Here  is  a  life  which  is  perfect,  so 
redeeming  in  its  power  and  quality,  that  there  is  not 
a  single  soul  in  all  God's  universe,  however  deeply 
bitten  with  shame  and  sin,  whose  poor  heart  cannot 
catch  fire  at  the  touch  of  Jesus  and  blaze  out  in  a 
new  splendour.     Surely,  if  the  Son   of  God  had  to 
suffer  to  become  a  perfect  Saviour,  if  He  met  it  with 
brave  acceptance,  like  a  soldier  going  into  the  battle 
for  which  he  has  enlisted,  there  must  be  meaning  in 
our   pain.     There  must   be   something   noble   in   it, 
something  enriching,  something  without  which  man 
could  not  be  man,  and  God  could  not  be  God.     Pain 
is  more  than  the  dross  which  we  would  fling  away 


2S  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

and  forget  as  soon  as  we  can ;  it  is  the  very  mould, 
the  very  furnace  without  which  the  Potter's  Hand 
could  not  f-^shion  us  into  beauty.  One  look  at  the 
face  of  Jesus,  lit  up  amid  the  shadows  of  Gethsemane 
by  the  passion  which  burns  at  His  heart,  will  give  you 
more  insight  into  the  meaning  of  pain  than  all  the 
volumes  that  ever  were  written.  He  did  not  put  it 
into  words.  He  put  it  into  a  life.  To  look  at  the 
facts  of  pain  apart  from  Christ,  is  like  trying  to  catch 
the  beauty  of  a  piece  of  music  by  reading  the  manu- 
script: if  you  have  not  the  musician's  eye,  it  is 
nothing  to  you  but  a  series  of  hieroglyphics,  a  set  of 
stupid  looking  marks  upon  a  paper.  But  hear  a 
master  play  that  music,  translating  it  into  melody 
through  the  medium  of  his  own  soul,  then  you  begin 
to  understand  what  glorious  secrets  of  a  hidden  world 
are  locked  up  in  these  crotchets  and  quavers.  Mark 
Rutherford  puts  this  point  finely :  "  When  we  come 
near  death  or  near  som^ething  that  may  be  worse,  all 
exhortation,  theory,  promise,  advice,  dogma  fail. 
The  one  staff  which  perhaps  may  not  break  under 
us,  is  the  victory  achieved  in  like  circumstances  by 
one  who  has  preceded  us,  and  the  most  desperate 
private  experience  cannot  go  beyond  the  garden  of 
Gethsemane."  If  Christ  suffered,  shall  there  not  be 
meaning  in  our  pain  ?  If  God  could  only  make  Jesus 
perfect  through  suffering,  is  there  any  likelihood  that 
He  could  do  anything  for  us  without  it  ?  There  is 
tremendous  comfort  in  this.  "It  behoved  Him,  in 
bringing  many  sons  unto  glory,  to  make  the  Captain 
of  their  salvation  perfect  through  sufferings." 

Now  this  light  which  shines  upon  the  world  of  pain 
from  the  suffering  of  Christ,  does  carry  us  a  little  way 
at  least  into  the  meaning  of  pain.     It  shows  us,  in 


PERFECT  THROUGH  SUFFERING        29 

some  degree,  how  sufferings  do  make  for  perfection. 
For  one  thing,  the  experience  of  suffering  is  a  means 
of  development.  All  the  experience  of  life  has  this 
power  of  developing  us,  of  bringing  out  of  us  some 
hidden  quality.  Life  has  a  cutting  edge  about  it 
in  all  its  sharper  experiences,  which  sets  free  some 
hidden  beauty,  some  buried  capacity,  as  a  land- 
slide which  tears  and  wounds  the  surface  of  a 
smiling  hillside  may  reveal  a  hidden  stratum  of  gold. 
A  man  can  no  more  become  a  man  till  life  has  dealt 
with  him,  than  a  daffodil  can  burst  its  sheath  till  it 
is  put  into  the  grip  of  the  earth.  And  part  of  that 
experience  is  the  experience  of  pain.  There  is  some- 
thing in  us  which  only  pain  can  bring  out.  Francis 
Thompson  describes  the  making  of  a  child's  soul  in 
heaven,  with  all  its  gifts  and  powers.  But  something 
was  wanting  at  the  end  which  only  earth  could  give 
her — a  tear.  Wherever  we  may  go  on  our  long 
journey,  there  is  something  which  only  earth  can 
give  us  to  fit  us  for  the  larger  life. 

Each  wave  that  breaks  upon  the  strand. 
How  swift  so  e'er  to  spurn  the  sand 

And  seek  again  the  sea, 
Christ-like,  within  its  lifted  hand 
Must  bear  the  stigma  of  the  land 

For  all  eternity. 

It  is  the  stigma  of  earth,  the  wound-prints  of  pain, 
which,  like  the  thorn-prints  on  Christ's  brow  and 
the  nail  marks  of  the  crucifixion,  bring  out  some 
richer  beauty.  Does  it  seem  blasphemous  to  suggest 
that  suffering  developed  Jesus?  It  is  the  suggestion 
of  the  Scripture.  His  suffering  was  real,  and  it 
played  a  real  part  in  the  awakening  of  His  Saviour- 
hood.     How  it  set  Him  free !     How  it  touched  the 


30  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

deep   fountains  of  his  compassion !     How  it  awoke 
His  tenderness  !     How  it  sent  Him  again  and  again 
to  His  knees  to  listen  through  the  silence  of  eternity 
— brooding  like  the  sky  over  a  pain-racked  world — 
for  the  interpreting  voices  of  love.     You  cannot  see 
Jesus  until  you  see  Him  against  the  background  of 
life's  experience:  and  you  cannot  see  Him  till  you 
see  Him  most  of  all  against  the  lurid  background  of 
his  Agony.     Suffering  has  the  power  to  soften  hard- 
ness, to  awaken  courage,  to  bring  a  tenderness  into 
proud  faces  which  nothing  else  can  put  there.     There 
are   flowers  that  grow  best  in  the  shadowed  places, 
and  these  are  the  flowers  with  the  most  delicate  tints 
and  fragrance.     It  is  no  glorification  of  pain  to  say 
these  things  or  think  these  things.     Physical  pain  we 
may  get  rid  of,  bit  by  bit,  in  part  at  least ;  though  it 
is  difficult  to  see  how  a  man  can  honourably  play  his 
part  in  sucji  a  world  as  this  without  some  cost  to  his 
body.     Make   a   universe  as   smooth  and  placid   as 
some  lotus-land,  and  there  will  be  fine  natures  who 
will  break  out  of  it   and   fling  themselves  away  on 
some  adventurous   quest  through  the  sheer  need  of 
living  dangerously.     I  cannot  imagine  a  world  more 
near  the  brink  of  war  and  bloodshed,  than  a  world 
that  we  have  made  so  smooth  and  easy  and  prosper- 
ous that  we  revolt  against  it.     Something  is  wrong 
with  progress  if  it  does  not  bring  more  pain  instead  of 
less — the  pain  of  souls  more  sensitive  to  sin  and  sorrow. 
And  by  that  pain  we  grow.     "  It  became  Him  to  make 
the  Captain  of  our  salvation  perfect  through  sufferings." 
But   again,  the   perfection    of  Christ   was   in  His 
oneness  with  all  men,  His  sympathy  with  all  men, 
through  which  He  found  the  power  to  save.     A  man 
is  not  really  growing  whose  heart  is  not  expanding  in 


PERFECT  THROUGH  SUFFERING        31 

sympathy  with  others.  The  great  qualities  of  the 
soul  are  those  that  link  us  with  all  mankind.  As  we 
rise  out  of  ourselves  in  devotion  to  others,  we  grow. 
And  by  suffering,  Christ  grew  into  a  deeper  sense  of 
unity  with  all  mankind,  a  unity  which  was  the  power 
of  His  Saviourhood;  till  His  heart  became  a  kind  of 
whispering  gallery  in  which  the  low  murmur  of  the 
world's  agony  cried  aloud  to  God.  He  gathered  up 
into  Himself  the  world  s  suffering  and  bore  it ;  and 
by  that  burden  He  became  the  perfect  Saviour. 

Give  me  no  counsel 
Nor  let  no  comforter  delight  mine  ear 
But  such  a  one,  whose  wrongs  do  suit  with  mine, 
And  I,  of  him,  will  gather  patience. 

People  have  often  puzzled  over  the  problem  why 
the  innocent  should  have  to  suffer  for  the  sins  of  the 
guilty,  and  why  it  is  that  the  pains  of  suffering  are 
so   badly   distributed.     In   protest   against   this,  the 
doctrine  of  Karma  has  come  into  existence,  whereby 
the   suffering  of  each  is  explained  as  the   result  of 
something  he  himself  has  done  in  a  former  life,  so 
that  each  man's  suffering  is  proportioned  to  his  guilt. 
If  there  is  a  doctrine  more  devastating  to  the  mind 
of  man    in  the  face  of  pain,  I  do  not  know  it.     It 
shuts  men  up  in  the  isolation  of  their  own  souls.     It 
turns  a  man's  place  of  suffering  into  a  prison,  from 
which   he  has  to   burrow  his  way  alone.     It  breaks 
humanity  up  into  self-existent  units,  so  that  we  are 
no  longer  a  family,  suffering  together  and  proud  to 
suffer  together,  proud  if  our  suffering  can  help  to  lift 
our  brothers'  weight  of  pain.     Humanity  is  one.     We 
are  members  one  of  another.     We  are  not  ourselves 
till  the  tendrils  of  our  sympathy  have  gone  out  and 
twined  themselves   about  other   lives  and  we  stand 


32  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

knit  together  for  good  or  ill.  It  is  this  power  of 
suffering  with  others,  and  thereby  in  our  measure 
redeeming  others,  that  pain  brings  to  our  door. 
Without  this,  Christ  could  not  have  been  a  Saviour. 
"  It  became  Him  to  make  the  Captain  of  our  salvation 
perfect  through  sufferings." 

Now  how  does  this  view  of  things  help  us  ?     We 
may   say   to   ourselves,   perhaps,   that    Christ   stood 
alone.     Suffering  was  all  very  well  for  such  as  He 
with  a  great  redeeming  task ;  that  was,  so  to  speak,' 
His    business.      He     needed    the    character    which 
suffering  could  give,  and  most  of  all  the   power  to 
save.     But  as  for  us,  something  less  will  serve.     The 
answer  to  all  this  is  in  a  word.     We  are  not  saved 
till  we   are   made   like  Christ,  and   this   likeness   to 
Christ   carries   all    through.      It   means   likeness   to 
Him  not  only  in  the  virtues  of  His  private  life ;  we 
must   be  like    Him  in  the  qualities  which   suffering 
made   perfect,   and    most   of  all,    in    the   quality  of 
saving  sympathy  by  which  we  bear  in  our  lives  the 
burden  of  others'  sin  and  shame  and  suffering.     The 
difficulty  many  people   have  in  being   reconciled  to 
suffering  is  their  unwillingness  to  be  made  like  what 
God  would  make   them,  which  is  like  Jesus.     That 
is  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter.     Do  we  want  to  be 
made  like  Jesus  ?     Or  have  we  some  ideal  of  our  own 
—some  rose-coloured  vision  of  ease  or  comfort  which 
pain  is  shattering  to  fragments  ?     The  secret  of  being 
reconciled  to  pain,  is  being  reconciled  to  God's  ideal 
of  life  in  Jesus.     Some  people  are  perilously  near  the 
old  Roman  Church  fallacy  of  two  orders  of  Christian 
conduct,  one  of  which  is  for  the  man  in  the  street 
the  other  for  the  man  in  the  cloister.     There  is  only 
one  order  of  saved  men.     It  is  the  order  of  love  ;  into 


PERFECT  THROUGH  SUFFERING        33 

which  a  man  is  brought  by  Christ ;  and  that  is  an 
order  in  which  he  becomes  a  saviour  of  others,  and 
his  own  sufferings  awaken  in  him  redeeming  quality 
and  power.  That  is  the  only  way  in  which  we  can 
be  saved  out  of  our  own  suffering.  We  are  not  saved 
till  we  are  saved  from  self-pity,  and  find  our  joy  in 
helping  others.  And  we  find  that  deliverance  from 
our  own  pain  in  a  great  alliance  with  the  loving 
purpose  of  Christ.  He  is  the  Leader  of  our  salvation. 
What  does  that  mean  ?  It  means  that  He  comes 
down  into  our  place  of  pain  and  wretchedness  to  lead 
us  out  of  it  by  the  way  of  fellowship  with  Him. 
There  is  no  escape  from  suffering  except  by  the  way 
of  a  great  love  and  a  great  vision  of  the  will  of  God, 
whereby  our  suffering  becomes  redeeming,  and  the 
pain  is  swallowed  up  in  the  passion  to  be  and  to  do 
what  God  would  have  us. 

Our  salvation  depends  on  our  fellowship  with 
Christ.  Our  victory  depends  on  our  sharing  the 
spirit  and  the  attitude  of  Christ.  One  of  the  Arctic 
explorers  tells  in  his  book  how  he  took  part  in  the 
hard  work  of  the  party,  pulling  the  sledges  with  the 
men,  suffering  with  them  in  all  their  labours.  He 
talks  about  the  "sympathy  of  the  traces."  He 
describes  how  the  depression,  or  lethargy,  or  pain  of 
his  men  communicated  itself  to  him  as  he  and  they 
held  the  same  cords  and  toiled  bit  by  bit  over  the 
snow  and  ice.  And  on  the  other  hand,  his  courage 
and  faith  and  hope  were  transmitted  to  them  through 
the  same  sympathy  of  the  traces,  so  that  they  were 
able  to  carry  on.  There  is  no  solution  for  the 
problem  of  suffering,  except  in  so  far  as  we  let  Christ 
share  our  burden,  by  giving  ourselves  to  His  task. 

To  the  man  who  is  out  for  himself  or  for  pleasure, 
3 


34  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

pain  is  a  horror  unrelieved,  a  disaster,  a  blot  upon 
the  universe,  and  there  is  no  escape  from  it  except 
by  chloroform  of  one  kind  or  another.  But  take  the 
attitude  of  Christ,  put  your  hand  to  His  task,  get 
close  to  Him.  See  life  with  His  eyes,  join  yourself 
to  His  party,  and  you  will  feel  the  subtle  sympathy 
of  the  traces,  the  strange  thrill  of  joy  and  hope  and 
peace.  "Take  my  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of 
Vie,  .  .  .  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls." 


THE  INCOMPLETE  VIRTUE  OP 
RESIGNATION 

"  Thy  will  be  done  in  earth,  as  it  is  in  heaven." — Matt.  vi.  lo. 

No  petition  in  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  so  frequently 
used,  and  none  so  frequently  misused.  This  was  a 
petition  which  was  often  found  on  the  lips  of  Jesus. 
It  served  Him  as  the  one  clear  utterance  of  His  need 
in  the  hour  of  His  sternest  crisis,  the  hour  He  spent 
in  Gethsemane.  "Thy  will  be  done"  is  the  word 
that  echoes  through  the  solemn  stillness  of  the 
garden  of  shadows.  "Nevertheless  not  My  will, 
but  Thine  be  done." 

Yet  there  is  no  prayer  so  frequently  misinterpreted 
as  this.  It  is  generally  associated  in  our  minds  with 
something  harsh  and  forbidding,  something  which 
throws  over  our  life  the  shadow  of  a  cross.  When 
we  take  this  prayer  and  set  it  to  music,  as  we  do  in 
several  of  our  hymns,  it  is  generally  set  to  a  dirge 
in  a  minor  key,  which  lowers  the  temperature  of  our 
soul  to  freezing-point  and  brings  a  kind  of  chill  to 
the  heart.  The  situations  to  which  we  apply  it,  are 
generally  those  which  have  the  tinge  and  colour  of 
Gethsemane. 

My  God  and  Father  while  I  stray, 

Far  from  my  home,  on  life's  rough  way. 

Oh  teach  me  from  my  heart  to  say, 

"Thy  will  be  done." 

35 


^6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

Is  this  a  true  picture  of  the  will  of  God  ?  Is  this 
the  right  kind  of  suggestion  to  gather  round  the 
will  of  God — that  will  which  is  love,  which  breathes 
in  the  beauty  of  the  earth  and  shines  in  the  sunlight 
of  the  heavens,  and  smiles  to  us  in  the  love  of  litth 
children  and  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  Was  it  really 
a  sombre  thing  which  Christ  had  in  His  mind,  when 
He  taught  us  to  pray  "Thy  will  be  done"? 

When  we  use  this  prayer,  what  is  the  attitude'we 
too  often  put  into  it?  Is  it  not  merely  a  kind  of 
pious  resignation  to  a  dark  fate  which  we  cannot 
avert?  A  calamity  comes  to  us.  It  may  be  our 
health  is  broken,  or  we  meet  some  staggering  loss,  or 
in  some  way  our  plans  are  crossed,  and  we  try  to 
submit  to  it  without  too  much  complaining  and 
conclude  that  that  is  the  fitting  time  to  pray  "  Thy 
will  be  done." 

Now,  is  this  right?  Was  Christ  merely  commend- 
ing here  a  spirit  of  resignation  ?  Was  He  merely 
commending  here  a  kind  of  baptized  fatalism,  a 
stoical  patience  with  adversity,  in  the  name  of  the 
will  of  God.  Is  there  not  something  braver  in  this 
prayer,  something  bigger,  something  we  can  see  and 
desire  and  consecrate  ourselves  to,  with  all  our  hearts, 
when  life  is  sunny  as  when  it  is  dark? 

There  are  two  things  which  this  resignation  idea 
forgets.  The  first  is  that  God  is  not  the  author  of 
many  of  the  things  which  we  are  accustomed  to  call 
the  will  of  God.  Are  we  going  to  make  God  re- 
sponsible, for  instance,  for  all  the  sickness  and  the 
sorrow  that  darkens  our  life  and  say  of  it,  "  It  is  the 
will  of  God"?  Is  God  responsible  for  the  East 
End  of  London?  Is  God  the  author  of  our  poverty- 
stricken,  drink-polluted  slums?     Is  God  responsible 


INCOMPLETE  VIRTUE  OF  RESIGNATION     37 

for  the  war  through  which  we  have  just  passed,  with 
all  its  heart-breaking  sorrows  and  shattered  lives? 
Is  God  responsible  for  plagues  which  mow  down  their 
thousands,  or  for  the  sickness  and  starvation  which  are 
desolating  so  much  of  Europe  ?  Is  God  responsible 
for  the  sins  which  cripple  bodies  and  souls  round  our 
doors,  and  send  their  poisonous  currents  of  disease 
and  weakness  through  the  lives  of  men  and  women 
to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  ?  Are  we  going 
to  say  that  these  things  are  the  will  of  God  ?  It  is 
these  which  are  the  root  causes  of  many  of  the  hard 
circumstances  and  conditions  in  which  men  live  their 
lives  to-day.  Can  these  be  the  will  of  God  ?  If  it 
were  so,  is  He  a  God  we  could  worship  ?  If  this  were 
His  will,  is  this  a  will  we  could  bow  down  to  without 
losing  our  self-respect  and  the  best  qualities  of  our 
soul  ?  Is  this  the  kind  of  thing  which  Christ  had  in 
His  mind  when  He  bade  us  pray,  "  Thy  will  be  done  "  ? 
I  have  taken  exaggerated  examples  of  the  kind  of 
thing  I  mean,  but  the  same  problem  arises  in  the 
smallest  ill  of  life — even  a  cut  finger !  How  are  we 
to  regard  these  things,  and  what  cause  are  we  to 
assign  to  them  ?  That  is  the  mystery  of  mysteries. 
It  goes  right  down  into  the  problem  of  evil,  into 
which  we  can  see  only  a  little  way.  But  no  man 
whose  life  has  been  touched  by  calamity  dare  make 
God  responsible  for  it,  without  landing  himself  in  a 
hopeless  problem,  and  without  doing  an  injury  to  his 
own  vision  of  God.  Whatever  brought  evil  into  our 
life,  it  is  not  of  God's  sending ;  it  is  not  of  God's 
willing ;  it  is  rather  the  breaking  of  God's  plan.  Our 
hard  conditions  are  the  best  He  could  do  for  us  in 
a  world  such  as  man  has  made  it.  The  difficult  lot 
in  which  men  find  themselves  is  the  result   of   His 


38  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

will   baffled    and    spoiled  by  the  conflicting  passion 
and  selfishness  of  men.     It  is  not  God's  original  will 

His  divine  decree.     That  would   be  to  turn   Him 

into  a  monster,  and  His  world  into  a  kind  of  witches* 

cauldron. 

The  second  thing  this  resignation  idea  forgets  is, 
that  the  will  of  God  is  something  we  have  to  do. 
It  is  not  something  which  is  done  in  spite  of  us. 
God's  will  is  only  done  as  we  help  Him  to  do  it. 
That  is  the  wonder  of  our  life,  that  we  are  given  a 
place  in  the  accomplishment  of  this  will  of  God.  If 
God's  will  were  a  divine  decree  by  which  everything 
is  fixed,  there  would  be  no  sense  in  praying  "Thy 
will  be  done."  It  would  be  done  in  spite  of  us,  and 
there  would  be  little  use  in  praying  for  resignation, 
for  it  could  matter  little  in  the  long  result  whether 
we  were  resigned  or  no.  God's  will  is  something  we 
must  do.  It  is  something  in  which  we  have  to  play 
our  part — a  voice  we  have  to  hear  and  obey — a 
purpose  we  have  to  see  and  carry  out — a  plan  we 
have  to  approve  and  work  upon — a  line  of  active 
love  we  have  to  grasp,  and  link  up  our  lives  with  it 
"  God  mend  all,"  said  the  workman  in  Carlyle's  story 
to  his  master,  looking  at  the  ruin  of  his  country. 
"  Nay,  but  we  must  help  Him  to  mend  it,"  was  the 
answer.  That  is  what  Christ  means.  He  means 
more  than  "  God  mend  all " ;  he  means  "  but  we  must 
help  Him."  It  is  a  prayer  to  see  the  will  of  God  in 
every  circumstance  of  life,  and  seeing  it,  to  have 
strength  to  do  it.  This  active  loyal  consecration  to 
the  will  of  God  is  what  the  prayer  demands.  "  Thy 
will  be  done  in  earth,  as  it  is  in  heaven." 

Now,  what  is  the  will  of  God  ?     What  is  the  active 
purpose  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  world? 


INCOMPLETE  VIRTUE  OF  RESIGNATION     39 

What  is  the  thing  God  is  seeking  in  and  through 
our  lives,  and  seeking  our  help  to  carry  out  ?  There 
is  only  one  word  that  can  express  it — the  Word 
that  "was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us."  Christ 
is  the  light  in  which  the  mind  and  will  of  God 
become  clear.  In  Christ,  God's  hidden  purpose 
for  your  life  and  mine  breaks  out  of  its  ancient 
obscurity,  like  a  secret  stratum  of  gold  which 
emerges  at  the  surface  of  the  hill.  Whatever  our 
life  may  be,  God's  will  for  us  is  to  make  us  like 
Jesus.  That  is  the  model,  so  to  speak,  on  which 
every  human  life  is  based.  That  is  the  final  goal 
to  which  the  race  of  humanity  is  tending.  That  is 
the  passionate  hope  for  every  one  of  us,  which  sleeps 
in  the  breast  of  God — the  hidden  dream  in  the  Artist's 
heart,  which  sets  Him  toiling  day  and  night  to  bring 
it  to  birth  in  a  masterpiece.  God's  will  is  to  make 
us  like  Jesus.  Never  lose  sight  of  that  for  a  moment, 
through  whatever  hard  way  life  may  be  leading  you. 
His  will  is  to  make  you  like  Christ,  to  bring  forth  in 
you,  cleansed  and  redeemed  by  grace,  "  the  peaceable 
fruits  of  righteousness." 

And  look  again,  what  is  the  larger  purpose  for 
which  Christ  strove — the  purpose  which  was  the 
driving  power  of  his  life  by  day  and  by  night,  so 
that  He  was  never  for  a  moment  out  of  harness? 
Was  it  not  the  redeeming  of  the  world,  of  the  whole 
world,  to  make  the  lives  of  men  beautiful  and  strong 
and  true,  and  bind  them  together  in  love  and  loyalty 
till  they  become  a  kingdom  of  God,  and  the  world 
their  Father's  house.  Watch  Him  as  He  goes  here 
and  there,  healing  the  sick,  driving  out  devils  of  lust, 
speaking  a  cheering  word  to  some  downhearted  soul, 
taking   men   and   women   and  remaking  them,  and 


40  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

breathing  into  them  the  breath  of  love  which  is  the 
breath   of  life.     That  was   the  will   of  God   taking 
shape.     That  was  the  will  of  God  being  done.     Tell 
me,  can  you  see  this  will  of  God  without  loving  it, 
without  desiring  it,  without  your  whole  being  going 
out  towards  it  as  the  real  ambition  of  life !     Can  you 
see  anything  greater  in  life  or  any  greater  way  of 
looking   at  life,  than  just  to  realize  that  you  have 
some  part  to  play  in  this  great  purpose,  some  con- 
tribution to  make  to  it,  that  your  life  may  be  built 
up   into   it,   as   the  coral   polyp  builds  up  its   little 
body,  out  of  the  shifting  waters  round  it,  into  the  solid 
rock  on  which  the  waves  and  storms  shall  beat  and 
break  in  vain  ?     It  is  this  ambition  which  Christ  puts 
into  our  heart,  and  bids  us  make  the  prayer  of  our 
life,  "  Thy  will  be  done  in  earth.'* 

Now,  what  is  the  attitude  to  life   in  its   various 
aspects  which  this  seeking  of  God's  will  demands? 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  attitude  of  brave 
acceptance  of  life's  inevitable  hardships  and  sorrows 
as  the  condition  in  which  we  have  to  seek  the  will 
of  God.     Notice  what  this  means.     It  means  some- 
thing more  than  resignation  to  a  lot  we  cannot  avoid, 
though  it  be  hard  to  bear.     A  sorrow  comes  to  us, 
and  we  say,  "  We  must  resign  ourselves  to  it  as  the 
will  of  God,"  and  we  submit  with  as  good  grace  as 
we  can  to  the  altered  circumstance  and  the   lonely 
days,  and  crush  as  far  as  we  can,  the  rebellious  will 
and  the  complaining  spirit,  and  try  to  say,  "  Thy  will 
be  done."     This  resignation  has  come  to  be  looked 
upon  as  one  of  the  great  Christian  virtues.     But  is 
this  resignation  all  that  the  will  of  God  demands  in 
such   a   situation?     And   is   this  resignation  such  a 
beautiful   Christian    grace   as  we  imagine   it   to  be, 


INCOMrLETE  VIRTUE  OF  RESIGNATION    41 

when   it   is  only  resignation.     Listen  to  what  R.  L, 
Stevenson    says   about   resignation.      He   is   talking 
about  the  garden  of  the  soul,  and  the  various  plants 
which    are    to    be   cherished    there.      "  There   is   a 
plant  called  winter  green,  or  Resignation,  otherwise 
known  as  the  False  Gratitude  plant.     It  is  a  showy 
plant,  but  leaves  little  margin  for  profit.     John,  do 
you  see  that  bed  of  Resignation  ?     I  will  not  have  it 
in  my  garden  !     It  flatters  not  the  eye  and  comforts 
not  the  heart.     Root  it  out — out  with  it !     And  in  its 
place  put  a  bush  of  Flowering  Piety,  but  see  it  be  of 
the  flowering  sort."     What  is  wrong  with  resignation 
is,   that   it   does   not   go   far   enough.     It  does   not 
flower,  it  does  not  blossom.     It  is  more  than  resigna- 
tion that  is  demanded.     It  is  acceptance  of  the  hard 
circumstances  and  the  sorrowful  way,  if  these  be  our 
portion,  as  the  conditions  in  which  we  are  to  find 
and   to   do    the   will   of    God.     But   the   conditions 
themselves  are  not  the  full  will  of  God.     They  are 
only  the  terms  on  which  we  are  to  live  out  the  life 
God  would  have  us  live,  and  play  our  part  in  the 
loving  purpose  of  God,  which  is  salvation  for  us  and 
for  all  the  world.     Not  merely  to  bow  our  head  to 
the  sorrow,  but   to  seek    to  shape   our  lives  in  that 
sorrow,  so  that  we  shall  do  the  will  of  God  and  show 
forth  that  courage  and  faith  and  loving-heartedness 
which  are  the  nature  of  Jesus.     Not  merely  to  resign 
ourselves  to  walk  a  lonely  way  or  carry  a  difficult 
cross,  but  walking  that  way  and  carrying  that  cross, 
to  find  our  place  in  the  service  of  God  and  fill  it  to 
the  full — that  is  to  do  the  will  of  God.     The  soldier 
is  sent  by  his  general  to  a  difficult  place  in  the  line, 
or  forced  to  hold  a  lonely  post  by  the  strategy  of  the 
enemy.     What  is  his  mood?     It   is  not  resignation 


^2  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

as  if  his  whole  duty  were  to  submit  to  these  conditions 
and  refrain  from   complaining.     His   duty   is   more 
than   that.     It   is  to  fight  the  foe,  to  carry  out  his 
orders  to  take  his  share  in  the  campaign.     So  it  is 
with  us      It  is  the  soldier  spirit  of  alert  and  vigorous 
loyalty  that  is  demanded,  not  the  barren  mood  of  a 
passive  resignation.     The  conditions  may  be  part  of 
God's  will,  the  very  best  He  could  devise.     Or  they 
may  have  been  forced  upon  us  through  some  cross- 
current of  sin  or  circumstance.     But  our  assurance  is 
that  therein  the  will  of  God  may  be  done.     In  them 
we   may  find  some  way  of  living  the  life  to  which 
Christ  calls  us.     There   we    may  find  some  way  of 
aidincT  the  purpose  of  God.     It  is  this  mind  we  seek, 
this  active  mind  and  passion  for  what  God  means  to 
make  of  us  and  through  us.     "  Thy  will  be  done  in 
earth,  as  it  is  in  heaven." 

Then  again,   it   is  a   prayer   for   the   discernment 
of  God's  will  in  the  perplexing  decisions  and  hard 
choices   of    life.     The   faith   with   which  the   Bible 
starts  in  bringing  us  near  to  God,  is  the  faith  that 
every  man's  life  is  a  plan  of  God.     To  every  man, 
as  some  one  puts  it,  there  is  given  "  a  definite  and 
peculiar   confidence   of  God."     If  we  were  in  close 
enough  touch  with  Him,  His  Spirit  would  guide  as 
so  that  at  any  perplexing  moment  we  would  find  a 
directing  finger  and  a  voice  would  say  to  us  in  some 
unmistakable  conviction,  *'  This  is  the  way,  walk  ye 
in  it."     That  way  for  us  would  be  the  will  of  God. 
This  prayer  is  a  prayer  for  grace  to  see  our  way,  day 
by  day,  clear  cut  in  the  light  of  God,  so  that  in  taking 
that  way,  we  are  fulfilling  His  purpose  of  God  for  us 
and  getting  His  will  done  on  the  earth. 

There  are  many  means  by  which  the  Spirit  guides 


INCOMPLETE  VIRTUE  OF  RESIGNATION     43 

us  in  these  perplexing  ways.     There  is  the  guidance 
of  an  inward  discernment,  a  fineness  and  delicacy  of 
perception    which   some   people   have   above  others. 
They  seem  to   know  what  is  right  as  by  a  sort  of 
instinct.     Every  man  who  is  in  touch  with  God  will 
be    Spirit-led.     He    will    come    to    feci    at    certain 
moments   of    life    a    pressure   upon    his   soul,   or   a 
shadow   falling  upon  his  way,  which   turns    him    to 
this  side  or  that.     Or  it  may  come  in  what  we  may 
call   the  guidance  of  circumstances.     How  often    it 
has  happened  in  a  man's  life  that  the  great  choices 
were  in  a  way  taken  out  of  his  hands,  and  that  he 
was  led  on  from  point  to  point,  by  the  directing  hand 
of  circumstances  I     It  may  be  objected  that  the  guid- 
ance of  circumstance  is  often  misleading.     So  it  is. 
Circumstances  are  like  everything  else  in  life.     They 
take   their  colour  from  our  own  minds.     A  certain 
event  may  say  one  thing  to  one  man,  and  another 
thing  to  another.     But  we  must  bring  the  right  mind 
to  the  circumstances.     God  will  not  lead  us  without 
the  use  of  our  own  minds.     We  must  apply  our  own 
thought    to   the  situation  and   use  the   judgment  of 
our  own  reason.     God  trains  us  by  forcing  us  to  choose 
and  see  our  path  step  by  step — even  at  the  risk  of 
mistakes.     The  great  thing  is  to  get  into  the  right 
attitude  of  mind,  and  in  that  attitude  think  things 
out.     And  the  right  mind  is  the  mind  that  seeks  only 
the  will  of  God,  the  mind  that  is  alert  for  opportunity, 
because  it  is  lit  with  the  passion  to  do  the  will  of 
God.     In   a  great  speech  which    Abraham    Lincoln 
delivered  just  before  his  assassination,  he  has  a  word 
on  this  matter.     He  is  looking  back  on  four  tremen- 
dous years  full  of  crisis,  which  might  have  made  any 
man  afraid.     And    now  at  last  he  has   come  safely 


44  THE  VICTORY   OF  GOD 

through.  "  I  have  not  controlled  events,"  he  says. 
"  I  would  rather  say  that  events  have  controlled  me. 
But  I  have  met  them  all  with  this  faith"— the  faith, 
that  is  to  say,  in  high  ideals  and  dependence  on  the 
help  of  God.  No  one  looking  at  these  events  would 
have  said  that  events  had  controlled  Lincoln.  Again 
and  again  he  seemed  to  take  a  line  that  was  totally 
against  the  clear  pointing  of  circumstance,  and  his 
own  Cabinet  was  often  opposed  to  him.  But  here  is 
the  point.  He  brought  a  faith  and  a  passion  to  events 
which  lit  them  up  and  gave  them  a  guiding  message. 
He  sought  the  will  of  God  for  his  nation  and  his 
time,  and  in  the  cross-currents  and  tides  of  things 
he  found  the  path  mapped  out.  That  is  what  we 
need  and  what  we  pray  for — a  mind  to  see  the  will 
of  God  in  our  daily  life,  so  that  events  shall  guide  us 
aright,  and  from  day  to  day  we  shall  do  the  thing 
which  is  the  will  of  God  for  us  in  our  situation.  "  Thy 
will  be  done  in  earth,  as  it  is  done  in  heaven." 

Further,  it  means  a  spirit  of  battle  and  service  amid 
the  ills  of  life  and  the  needs  of  others.  Many  of  the 
ills  of  life  have  no  right  to  bring  us  resignation. 
They  should  bring  into  our  soul  the  spirit  of  rebellion. 
If  God  permits  them  at  all,  it  is  for  this  one  reaction 
upon  our  souls,  to  rouse  us  to  a  crusade  which  will 
sweep  them  right  away  as  having  no  proper  place 
in  God's  universe.  This  is  true  of  many  of  the  ills 
of  our  own  life.  We  have  no  business  to  endure 
them.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  ill  health,  for  instance, 
to  which  we  have  no  right  to  resign  ourselves.  No 
man  has  any  right  to  be  resigned  to  ignorance,  who 
has  time  on  his  hands  and  books  at  his  elbow. 
There  is  an  apathy  which  is  the  sin  of  sins,  because 
it  foils  God's  passion  of  self-giving.     Above  all,  we 


INCOMPLETE  VIRTUE  OF  RESIGNATION     45 

dare  not  be  resigned  to  any  sin  or  vicious  habit 
which  stains  our  own  life.  In  a  recent  novel  there 
is  the  story  of  a  girl,  whose  early  years  were  spoiled 
by  a  vicious  temper  in  her  blood  which  rose  and 
swept  over  her  in  gusts  of  passion.  In  vain  she 
tried  to  fight  it,  and  her  disappointment  began  to 
settle  down  in  a  kind  of  fatal  resignation  of  despair. 
At  last  a  friend,  brooding  on  her  trouble,  found  the 
secret,  and  put  his  finger  on  the  root.  "  The  mistake 
you  make,"  he  said  to  her,  "  is  this.  You  accept  the 
imperfect  as  a  penalty,  instead  of  claiming  the  perfect 
as  a  birthright."  How  many  of  us  make  that  mistake ! 
God's  perfect  Will  is  our  purity  and  victory.  That 
Will  is  our  birthright  in  Jesus.  It  is  our  part  to 
claim  it  through  the  sufficiency  of  His  grace.  To 
see  it  in  Him  and  claim  it  as  our  right,  is  the  first 
step  out  of  bondage  into  victorious  freedom. 

If  it  is  so  with  ourselves,  it  is  abundantly  so  with 
regard  to  others.  A  man  may  be  resigned  to  the 
ills  of  his  own  life.  No  man  has  any  business  to  be 
resigned  to  the  ills  of  others,  so  far  as  he  can  help 
to  prevent  them  or  cure  them.  The  idea  that  there 
are  certain  curses  which  are  in  the  nature  of  things — 
that  there  will  always  be  war,  or  there  will  always  be 
poverty,  or  there  will  always  be  vice — is  standing  in 
the  way  of  the  kingdom  of  God  to-day,  because  it  is 
paralysing  the  hands  of  people  who  might  help,  if 
only  they  did  not  lay  this  anodyne  of  false  resignation 
to  their  souls,  when  the  bitter  need  of  the  world 
comes  challenging  by.  The  suggestion  is  that  these 
things  are  so,  because  they  have  been  made  so, 
because  they  are  in  some  way  the  will  of  God.  But 
are  these  things  the  will  of  God  ?  Surely  not !  Was 
it  not  against  these  things  that  Christ  set  the  whole 


46  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

current  of  His  being  in  an  offensive  of  love  which 
brought  Him  to  a  Cross?  What  does  the  Cross 
mean  if  it  does  not  mean  God's  indestructible  hope 
for  humanity.  His  will  of  love  is  so  precious  a  thing, 
that  Christ  was  willing  to  die  to  make  it  visible,  and 
to  keep  it  alive  in  the  earth  before  the  eyes  of  men. 
Are  we  to  be  content  with  the  world  as  it  is,  in  the 
name  of  the  will  of  God  ? 

Shall  crime  bring  crime  for  ever — 

Strength  aiding  still  the  strong; 
Is  it  Thy  will,  O  Father, 

That  man  should  toil  for  wrong? 
No  !  say  Thy  mountains.     No  !  Thy  skies. 
Man's  clouded  sun  shall  brightly  rise, 
And  songs  ascend  instead  of  sighs. 

That  is  the  note  this  prayer  demands — the  note 
of  battle  that  challenges  every  wrong,  the  note  of 
service  which  seeks  every  healing  and  redeeming 
way.  Every  scientist  who  is  rooting  out  disease  is 
doing  the  will  of  God.  Every  man  who  is  seeking 
to  make  life  sweeter  and  better,  is  doing  the  will  of 
God.  Every  philanthropist  who  is  trying  to  assuage 
the  tide  of  human  misery,  every  politician  who  seeks 
to  bring  in  better  conditions  of  life  for  the  people, 
is  doing  the  will  of  God.  This  is  a  fighting  prayer. 
It  is  a  worker's  prayer.  It  is  the  prayer  of  the  eager 
heart,  longing  for  a  world  in  which  dwclleth  righteous- 
ness.    "  Thy  will  be  done  in  earth,  as  it  is  in  heaven." 

What  does  "  in  heaven  "  suggest  ?  Who  shall  say  ? 
But  the  heart  of  it  is  the  spirit  to  do  God's  will 
for  the  love  of  it.  It  means  the  obedience  which 
comes  from  the  free  choice  of  the  heart.  God  will 
have  no  conscripts  in  His  army,  but  the  self-made 
conscripts  of  love.     To  do  the  will  of  God  on  earth 


INCOMPLETE  VIRTUE  OF  RESIGNATION     47 

as  in  heaven  means  so  loving  it,  that  it  will  become 
the  very  choice  and  desire  of  our  hearts,  the  very- 
inspiration  of  our  lives.  "Thy  statutes  are  become 
my  songs  in  the  house  of  my  pilgrimage."  The 
songs  in  which  we  sing  of  the  will  of  God,  should  be 
the  most  cheerful  songs  in  our  books  of  praise.  The 
will  of  God  will  never  be  done,  till  we  see  it  as  Jesus 
saw  it — as  the  one  glorious  ambition  and  purpose  of 
life.  The  will  of  God  must  become  a  battle-cry  and 
a  marching  song.  By  such  triumphant  loyalty  the 
Kingdom  will  be  brought  in  and  the  King  come  to 
His  own. 


THE  KEY  TO  EXPERIENCE 

"  And  when  they  were  come,  and  had  gathered  the  Church  together, 
they  rehearsed  what  great  things^  the  Lord  had  done  for  them." — 
Acts  xiv.  27. 

It  is  a  great  day,  when  a  man  who  has  been  away  on 
some  expedition,  gathers  his  friends  round  him  to 
tell  his  story.  You  can  tell  a  good  deal  about  a 
man's  character  by  the  kind  of  description  he  gives 
of  such  experiences.  If  a  man  comes  back  from 
a  foreign  tour,  for  instance,  and  speaks  of  nothing 
but  the  quality  of  the  hotels  he  lived  in,  you 
know  where  to  place  him  at  once.  Some  will  tell 
only  of  their  losses,  or  their  discomforts,  or  the 
ills  they  suffered  upon  the  journey.  Some,  on  the 
other  hand,  will  describe  the  beautiful  things  they 
saw,  the  kindnesses  that  were  done  to  them,  and 
so  reveal  a  vivid  interest  in  God's  world  and  a 
nature  on  the  outlook  for  the  best.  In  any  case 
nothing  reveals  a  man  so  much  as  the  kind  of 
record  he  keeps  in  his  mind  of  the  experiences 
of  life,  no  matter  how  life  may  have  treated  him. 
And  nothing  better  illustrates  the  kind  of  man  Paul 
was  than  this  word  which  describes  his  account  of 
his  first  journey  as  a  missionary  of  Christ.  He  and 
Barnabas  had  been  sent  away  from  Antioch  some 
months  before,  to  be  pioneers  of  the  gospel  in  distant 

^  Phrase  translated  as  in  Gospels. 
48 


THE  KEY  TO  EXPERIENCE  49 

and  dangerous  places,  and  break  new  ground  for 
Christ.  When  they  came  back  from  that  journey 
they  gathered  the  Church  together  and  rehearsed. 
"  what  great  things  the  Lord  had  done  for  them." 

This  is  one  of  those  revealing  flashes  which  light 
up  a  man's  soul.  For  if  you  read  the  account  of  the 
journey  you  will  see  that  Paul  might  have  laid 
emphasis  on  a  good  many  other  things.  It  had  not 
been  all  milk  and  honey.  They  had  had  many 
trying  times.  Again  and  again  the  fury  of  a  great 
mob  was  let  loose  against  them,  and  they  had  been 
driven  out  of  one  city  after  another.  There  must 
have  been  a  good  deal  of  hunger  and  thirst  to  bear 
They  had  doubtless  had  many  a  very  uncomfortable 
night.  They  were  often  footsore  and  weary  and  met 
with  many  a  cold  reception.  To  crown  everything, 
the  people  of  Lystra  stoned  Paul,  and  hurt  him  so 
badly,  with  intent  to  kill  him,  that  he  was  drawn  for 
dead  out  of  the  city.  Many  a  man  could  have  made 
quite  a  doleful  tale  out  of  it  all,  and  at  least  given 
such  a  recital  of  his  troubles  as  would  have  left  the 
impression  that  he  was  something  of  a  hero  or  a 
martyr,  or  both.  But  that  was  not  Paul's  way. 
When  they  had  done  sketching  their  story,  it  is  the 
face  of  God  that  shines  out  of  the  picture.  God's 
love  and  care  were  uppermost  in  their  minds,  and  lit 
the  thorny  road  they  had  been  walking  with  lamps 
of  gold.  They  forgot  all  the  hardships  and  the 
weariness  in  one  splendid  and  glowing  memory  of 
the  great  things  which  God  had  done  for  them. 

Does  not  this  hold  a  message  for  us  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  life,  and  in  the  outlook  we  ought  to  have 
upon  our  past  and  our  present  experience  ?     How  do 
we  sum  up  our  day,  looking  back  upon  it  as  we  do 
4 


50  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

sometimes  of  an  evening  when  the  lights  are  low, 
and  the  noises  of  the  day  are  hushed  ?  We  can  tell 
a  good  deal  about  ourselves  from  the  summary  we 
make  of  our  experiences.  How  do  we  sum  up  our 
activities  as  a  Church,  for  instance,  when  we  look 
back  on  the  past  year?  What  kind  of  experiences 
do  we  lay  stress  on  ?  You  can  tell  a  good  deal  about 
a  congregation  from  reading  a  Church  report  if  you 
read  between  the  lines,  often  far  more  than  the 
writers  meant  to  say.  You  can  tell  what  kind  of 
people  they  are  from  the  things  on  which  they  lay 
stress  in  the  experience  of  congregational  life,  whether 
they  are  spiritual  or  unspiritual,  whether  they  are 
puffed  up  with  outward  prosperity,  or  shining  with 
the  grace  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus.  Here,  in  Paul's 
report  of  what  had  happened  on  his  journey,  we  have 
a  lesson  on  the  right  stressing  of  life,  the  right 
emphasis  of  life.  Does  it  not  suggest  to  us  that  if  a 
man  have  the  right  spirit,  no  matter  what  his  experi- 
ences have  been,  there  will  be  something  good  to  tell 
about  life,  something  encouraging,  something  hopeful, 
something  to  raise  a  song  about,  even  though  it  be 
from  a  prison,  even  though  it  be  a  song  in  the  night, 
and  in  the  darkest  day  some  light  be  found  if  we  will 
look  for  it  ?  Does  it  not  suggest  that  in  the  hardest 
and  bitterest  experience  there  are  rays  of  hope,  and 
gleams  of  the  comfort  and  consolations  of  God  ? 
Some  have  been  passing  through  the  bitterest  years 
of  life,  filled  to  the  brim  with  anguish  and  corroding 
anxiety  and  wintry  cares.  As  they  look  back  it 
seems  one  long  valley  of  unbroken  shadow.  But  is 
that  the  last  word  ?  Is  there  no  silver  lining  to  the 
cloud,  nothing  to  give  a  hint  of  God's  care  and  God's 
consolations  ?     Surely  if  we  look  again  there  is  some- 


THE  KEY  TO  EXPERIENCE  51 

thing  too  for  which  we  can  thank  God,  something 
which,  if  we  once  get  hold  of  it,  would  keep  back  for 
a  moment  the  flood  of  great  waters,  till  we  get  our 
feet  once  more  firmly  planted  upon  the  rock.  What- 
ever life  may  have  brought  us  through,  there  is 
always  enough  to  thank  God  for.  The  care  and 
love  of  God  are  never  foiled  or  baffled  through  the 
accidents  of  nature  or  the  malice  of  men  or  even  by 
our  own  sins  and  blunders.  Love  always  finds  out 
a  way  into  our  life.  The  earth  may  be  torn  and 
blasted  by  battle;  but  the  spirit  of  life  is  undefeated. 
It  breaks  out  afresh,  covering  the  torn  and  ghastly 
earth  with  flowers.  Milton  may  lose  his  eyesight; 
but  the  love  that  made  him,  works  inward,  giving 
him  keener  vision  of  things  unseen.  Death  may 
shadow  our  friendships ;  but  love  breaks  out  around  us 
in  a  deeper  sense  of  human  sympathy,  weaving  other 
ties  the  stronger.  Sin  may  blast  our  lives  in  one 
direction ;  but  the  Spirit  of  love  draws  near  in 
cleansing  shame  and  contrition  and  braces  our  hearts 
for  a  braver  battle.  There  are  always  the  divine 
compensations.  There  is  always  something  left,  even 
amid  the  ruins — through  which  God  can  speak  to  us, 
and  give  us  back  the  light  of  His  face.  Stevenson 
tells  of  an  old  sailor's  summary  of  life  which  he 
had,  worked  out  in  an  emblem  at  each  side — "An 
anchor — stands  for  hope — and  in  the  middle  the 
word  '  Thankful.'"  The  eye  which  Christ  has  opened 
to  life,  and  given  the  true  perspective,  sees  only 
what  makes  us  grateful,  and  only  what  bids  us 
hope.  Go  to  a  sick  bed  yonder  and  you  will  find 
one  sick  unto  death,  worn  and  wan  with  pain.  He 
may  begin,  if  you  ask  him,  by  speaking  of  his  trouble. 
But  that  will  not  be  the  last  word.     Suddenly  the 


52  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

key  will  change  from  the  minor  to  the  major.  A 
new  look  will  come  into  the  eye  and  you  are  listen- 
ing to  a  story  of  mercies,  of  inward  joy,  of  fortunate 
things  and  happy  incidents,  interpreted  by  love 
as  the  workings  of  Providential  grace.  Matthew 
Arnold  describes  it,  poet  of  melancholy  though  he 
was : — 

'Twas  August,  and  the  fierce  sun  overhead 
Smote  on  the  squalid  streets  of  Bethnal  Green; 
And  the  pale  weaver  through  his  windows  seen 
In  Spitalfields,  looked  thrice  dispirited. 

I  met  a  preacher  there  I  knew,  and  said, 

"111  and  o'er  worked,  how  fare  you  in  this  scene?" 

"Bravely,"  he  said,   "for  I  of  late  have  been 

Much  cheered  by  thoughts  of  Christ,  the  living  Bread.** 

That  is  always  the  last  word  for  Paul  and  those 
who  have  seen  Christ  Jesus.  "Troubled  on  every 
side,  bur  not  distressed.  Perplexed  but  not  in 
despair,  persecuted  but  not  forsaken,  as  dying  and 
behold  we  live,  sorrowful  yet  always  rejoicing."  That 
is  the  last  word,  the  conquering  word.  Even  so  they 
came  back  out  of  many  hardships,  and  "rehearsed 
what  great  things  God  had  done  for  them." 

Now  this  brings  us  to  the  point  of  the  whole 
matter.  What  is  it  that  gives  a  man  like  Paul  this 
kind  of  optimism  and  gladness,  so  that  he  is  always 
able  to  pick  out  the  best,  and  always  able  in  tbi 
darkest  day  to  see  some  gleam  of  lignt  from  heaven 
itself?  It  did  not  mean  that  his  nature  was  so  con- 
stituted that  he  was  impervious  to  trouble.  There 
are  some  people  like  that.  They  are  like  the  sundial 
with  the  legend,  "  I  mark  only  the  sunny  hours."  In 
a  sense  that  is  a  good  thing  to  do.  It  is  the  very 
thing  I  have  been  arguing  for,  if  we  mean  by  it  the 


THE  KEY  TO  EXPERIENCE  53 

faculty  for  keeping  alive  in  our  mind  the  good  and 
gracious  things  of  life,  and  making  no  record  of  its 
darker  days  to  hold  it  up  against  the  universe.     But 
if  marking  only  the  sunny  hours  means  that  our  soul 
is  so  callous,  so  hard,  that  it  has  lost  the  capacity  to 
feel  the  pain  of  life,  and  especially  the  pain  of  others, 
then  we  have  lost  the  capacity  for  life's  richest,  sweet- 
est, and  profoundest  experiences,  the  joy,  which,  as 
George  Eliot  says,  is  "  so  like  pain  that  we  can  only  tell 
it  from  pain  by  its  being  what  our  souls  desire  above 
everything  else,  because  we  know  that  it  is  good." 
The  deepest  joys  of  life  are  not  found  by  running  away 
from  its  painful  facts,  or  shutting  out  discomfort  and 
hardship.     The  author  of  De  Profundis  traces  his  fall 
to  the  fact  that  he  always  chose  the  sunny  side  of 
the  street  and  made  a  fine  art  of  cultivating  pleasure. 
The  deepest  joy  is  a  by-product  of  the  life  that  loses 
itself  seeking  and  serving  God  in  everything.     Shun- 
ning  life  and   screening  ourselves   from   its  ills,  we 
lose,  indeed,  the  capacity  to  be  taught  of  God ;  for  a 
soul  that  is  rich  in  feeling  is  a  sensitive  instrument 
which  catches  the  finer  accents  of  His  message.     It 
was  not  because  Paul  did  not  feel  "the  slings  and 
arrows  of  outrageous  fortune"  that  he  said  nothing 
about  them,  and  only  "  rehearsed  what  great  things 
God   had  done   for   him."     It  was   because   he  had 
caught  and  held  to  his  heart  God's  gracious  purpose 
and  made  that  his  own.     He  had  seen  that  purpose 
working  in  two  directions,  both  in  him  and  through 
him  —  in    him    for   himself    and    through   him    for 
the  world.      He   had    seen    that   purpose   in    Jesus, 
and    to   his    Christ-illumined    mind    the   world   had 
become   the   sphere  of  God's  creative   and   redeem- 
ing action.     With  that  new  vision  in  his  heart,  he 


54  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

had  gone  out  into  the  world  to  watch  it  working 
through  everything,  and  to  ally  himself  and  all  his 
powers  of  faith  and  courage  and  self-sacrifice  with  its 
operations.  The  man  who  will  do  that  finds  himself 
living  in  a  transformed  world.  The  whole  universe 
of  experience,  rough  or  smooth,  storm  or  sunshine, 
life  or  death,  becomes  a  mighty  conspiracy  of  the 
Divine  Love. 

Let  us  try  for  a  moment  or  two  to  look  with  Paul's 
eyes  as  he  so  interpreted  his  experience,  that  it  seemed 
full  of  the  great  things  of  God.  First,  let  us  see  that 
the  great  things  God  does  for  us  are  what  He  does  in 
us.  The  purpose  of  God  in  the  world  is  neither  our 
happiness  nor  our  comfort,  but  our  character.  We 
are  here  that  God  may  make  something  of  us  as 
moral  and  spiritual  beings.  Paul  had  that  fixed 
deep  in  his  soul.  He  was  here  on  this  earth  not 
for  what  he  could  make  or  enjoy  or  win  from  the 
point  of  view  of  material  success,  but  for  what 
Christ  could  make  of  him.  The  moment  he  had 
that  truth  fixed  in  his  soul,  accepting  it  and  con- 
senting to  it  with  all  his  being,  a  great  change  came 
over  the  face  of  experience.  Many  things  lost  their 
significance  at  once.  They  simply  did  not  naatter. 
A  few  stones  falling  on  his  body  here  or  there,  did 
not  matter.  A  few  nights'  sleep  lost,  did  not  matter. 
What  the  Jews  said  about  him  by  way  of  relieving 
their  minds,  did  not  matter.  The  thing  that  did 
matter  was  how  he  bore  himself  when  these  things 
were  going  on.  Did  fie  keep  a  brave  heart  or  did 
he  play  the  coward  when  they  stoned  him  ?  Did  he 
keep  his  temper  sweet  and  gentle  or  give  way  to  a 
bitter  and  revengeful  mood  when  they  flung  their 
jibes  at  him?     Did  he  stand  true  amid  everything, 


THE  KEY  TO  EXPERIENCE  55 

true  to  his  faith,  true  to  the  little  company  who  had 
chosen  him  to  go  and  who  were  praying  for  him 
away  back  yonder  in  Antioch  ?  That  was  the  thing 
that  mattered  !  And  if  his  courage  rose  and  his  faith 
grew  clearer  and  sweeter,  as  it  did,  what  was  the 
explanation  ?  Surely  it  was  God's  doing,  God's  way 
of  giving,  blessing,  enriching,  strengthening  with  His 
inward  grace.  It  was  just  God  doing  great  things 
for  him,  working  into  his  soul  shining  strands  of 
patience  and  courage  and  Christian  manliness,  and 
working  out  of  it  by  that  same  process  all  taint  of 
pride  and  self-satisfaction  and  every  sort  of  subtle 
selfishness  which  might  have  made  him  of  less  use  to 
God  and  men.  It  was  these  works  of  redeeming  love 
which  God  was  doing  in  him,  of  which  Paul  was 
thinking.  Not  that  he  was  a  prig  or  a  sentimentalist, 
counting  virtues  and  registering  feelings.  But  surely 
there  is  something  wholly  right  and  pardonable  in 
any  man  who  wants  to  be  of  some  use  to  God, 
rejoicing  to  see  one  dark  thing  after  another  losing 
its  grip  and  slackening  its  pursuit,  as  he  keeps  him- 
self in  the  shadow  of  the  Cross — if,  as  Paul  did,  he 
give  the  glory  to  God.  Is  not  this  the  right  way  of 
judging  life's  experiences?  The  great  things  God 
does  for  us  are  not  the  things  He  does  outside  of 
us — His  providential  guidance,  deliverances  from 
danger  and  the  like,  the  gifts  that  life  is  always 
bringing  to  us  so  wonderfully.  The  great  things 
God  does  for  us  are  done  within  us,  in  the  effect 
of  these  experiences  upon  our  natures.  Do  our 
experiences  pass  within  to  do  the  work  which  God's 
Spirit  can  enable  them  to  do,  leaving  us  when  they 
have  gone  with  some  new  grace  of  courage,  some 
larger  vision  of  God,  some   deeper  sympathy  with 


56  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

man,  some  surer  mastery  of  life?     Or  do  they  only 
pass  us  by,  recording  in  our  memories  the  fact  that 
they  have  come  to  us,  just  as  a  passing  tripper  would 
scrawl  his  name  upon  a  wayside  rock  ?     The  test  of 
what  we  are  getting  out  of  life  is  its  reaction  upon 
our  souls.     An  old  man  once   said   to  a  youth   set- 
tin"-  out  upon  the  road,  "  Remember,  life  will  either 
soften  your  heart  or  it  will  harden  it,  or  else  it  will 
break  it."     There  is  much  truth  in  this  discernment ; 
and  every  kind  of  experience  has  this  varied  power. 
The  question  of  life's  success  is   not  what  we  have 
made  of  it,  but  what  it  has  made  of  us  !     What  kind 
of  men  and  women  have  we  become  in  the  contact 
with  life?     What  kind  of  souls  have   we  developed 
through   the   stress    and    strain?       Are   our   natures 
being  deepened,  our  hearts  being  softened,  our  minds 
growing  clearer  about  the  great   things,  our  spirits 
entering  more  deeply  into  the  living  peace  of  Christ? 
Is  the  vision  of  Christ  growing  finer  and  more  radiant 
year   by   year,  as  the    face   of   Beatrice    became   to 
Dante,  the  higher  he  ascended  toward  Paradise?     Is 
the  increasing  experience  of  life  revealing  to  us  ever 
some  new  aspect  of  the   everlasting  love?     Listen! 
"  Then  were  the  disciples  filled  with  joy  and  with  the 
Holy  Ghost."     Do  we  know  anything  of  that  experi- 
ence— the  joy   of    God's    presence,    the   power   and 
freedom  of  the  soul  which  is  increasingly  God-con- 
trolled and   God-possessed  ?      These   are   the   great 
experiences,  the  enduring  experiences,  beside  which 
the  things  that   merely  touch   our   outward   life  are 
but  debris,  of  no  more  real  and  lasting  value  than 
the   trifles   we   bring    back  from    a    foreign    tour   to 
keep   in   our  cupboards  for  mementoes  of  the  past, 
The   great  things  of  life  are  the  abiding  influences 


THE  KEY  TO  EXPERIENCE  57 

wrought  into  our  nature  by  the  gracious  discipline 
of  God.  It  was  these  fruits  of  experience  which 
were  in  Paul's  mind  when  "  he  rehearsed  the  great 
things  God  had  done  for  them." 

But  again,  Paul  recognized  that  the  great  things 
of  life  are  the  things  which  God  does  througJi  us. 
No  doubt  it  was  upon  these  he  dwelt  even  more 
than  the  other,  how  the  cripple  was  healed,  and  the 
devils  were  driven  out,  and  the  light  of  the  Gospel 
message  kindled  the  flame  of  faith  and  love  in  every 
town  he  had  visited.  It  is  a  great  story,  which  thrills 
us  even  now  as  we  read  it.  Is  there  any  greater 
thing  God  can  do  for  a  man  than  to  make  him  the 
channel  of  inspiration  and  the  instrument  of  help 
and  healing  to  the  world  about  him  ?  There  is  a 
phrase  used  in  the  business  world  to  describe  men 
whose  work  is  of  vital  importance  to  several 
branches  of  an  industry.  They  are  called  "  pivotal  " 
men.  That  was  Paul's  position.  He  was  a  pivotal 
man  upon  whose  influence  and  faith  the  conversion 
of  hundreds  revolved,  and  a  whole  race  of  men  and 
women  swung  into  the  light  of  faith  and  hope.  Now 
that  is  the  position  in  which  every  Christian  man 
stands  to  his  fellows  in  some  degree.  He  is  a  vital 
point  in  the  line  of  God's  communications  with  the 
world  around  him.  He  is  a  vital  link  in  the  chain 
of  God's  redeeming  purpose.  Others  are  depending 
on  him  for  the  right  attitude  to  life.  Others  are 
swinging  into  the  line  of  God's  grace  upon  the 
pivot  of  his  influence,  consciously  or  unconsciously. 
Is  there  any  greater  thing  God  can  do  for  any 
man  than  to  make  him  capable  of  such  a  post  ? 
Do  you  remember  the  noble  pleci  which  Jeanie 
Deans,   in   The  Heart  of  Midlothian^   made   to   the 


58  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

Queen  after  that  long  journey  south  to  beg  for 
her  sister's  pardon?  "When  the  hour  of  trouble 
comes  to  the  mind  or  the  body,  and  when  the  hour 
of  death  comes,  that  comes  to  high  and  low,  then  it 
isna  what  we  hae  dune  for  oursells,  but  what  we  hae 
dune  for  others,  that  we  think  on  maist  pleasantly." 
It  is  these  acts  of  blessing  which  in  any  true  valua- 
tion of  life  are  "  the  great  things  God  has  done  for 
us." 

Now  if  this  be  so,  will  it  not  cast  a  new  light 
upon  many  of  the  darker  experiences  of  life — the 
waste  places  of  sorrow  or  pain — and  make  them 
blossom  as  the  rose  ?  Would  it  not  reconcile  us  to 
much  that  is  very  bitter,  if  we  could  see  in  it  God's 
method  of  equipping  us  for  this  task  of  blessing,  and 
setting  us  in  the  place  where  we  could  be  most 
useful  ?  Is  not  the  place  of  pain  in  which  God  sets 
us  with  others,  a  whispering  gallery  in  which  every 
syllable  of  courage  or  faith  may  become  vibrant  with 
inspiration  and  find  a  ready  audience  ?  Is  not  the 
furnace  of  suffering  God's  method  of  shaping  us  to 
the  higher  uses  of  His  grace, 

As  iron  dug  from  central  gloom 
And  heated  hot  with  burning  fears, 
And  dipt  in  baths  of  hissing  tears, 
And  battered  with  the  shocks  of  doom 
To  shape  and  use? 

Does  not  our  pain  take  on  a  new  meaning  when  we 
see  in  it  God's  opportunity  of  revealing  to  our  souls 
that  grace  wherewith  we  may  "comfort  others  with 
the  comfort  by  which  we  are  comforted  of  Him"? 
One  of  Peary's  companions  in  Polar  exploration 
referred  to  a  year  of  incredible  hardship  and  toil  as 
"  the  greatest  year  of  my  life,"  because  of  some  new 


THE  KEY  TO  EXPERIENCE  59 

values  which  it  had  given  to  it.  And  surely  if  we 
learn  to  grasp  the  gracious  purpose  of  God  in  Jesus, 
the  time  will  come  when  we  shall  look  back  upon 
life's  experience  with  a  new  interpretation,  and 
measure  it  by  the  values  of  the  Cross,  and  say, 
"  The  Lord  hath  done  great  things.  The  Lord 
hath  done  great  things  for  us,  whereof  we  are 
glad." 


HOW  GOD  BRINGS  MEN  TO  JUDGMENT 

"  When  Thy  judgments  are  in  the  earth,  the  inhabitants  of  the  world 
will  learn  righteousness."— Isa.  xxvi.  9. 

These  chapters,  so  far  as  we  can  gather,  are  part  of 
a  ^reat  cry  which  went  up  from  the  hearts  of  exiles. 
The  date  and  circumstances  of  this  prophecy  are 
uncertain,  but  the  language  reflects  the  bitterness  of 
a  people,  cultured  and  saintly,  torn  from  their  homes 
and  held  captive  in  some  foreign  land  by  the  clutch 
of  a  ruthless  tyrant.  As  Sir  George  Adam  Smith 
points  out,  there  are  many  notes  in  this  cry.  There 
is  the  note  of  poverty  and  suffering  which  had  burnt 
itself  into  their  blood.  There  is  the  note  of  penitence 
wrung  from  them  by  the  sense  that  their  own  sin  and 
disloyalty  to  God  had  helped  to  bring  them  where 
they  were.  But  besides  this,  there  is  the  longing 
which  has  always  more  or  less  arisen  from  the  hearts 
of  suffering  men,  the  longing  for  an  act  of  God 
which  should  redress  the  balance  of  this  misguided 
world.  Here  is  our  enemy,  ruthless,  proud,  and 
prosperous  —  that  was  the  sting  of  it!  When 
will  he  be  brought  to  a  sense  of  his  wicked- 
ness? It  is  the  common  complaint  of  man  baffled 
by  the  mystery  of  an  ill-adjusted  world  !  On  the 
surface,  goodness  and  evil  seem  to  have  no  relation  to 
material  things.  It  often  seems  to  make  little  differ- 
ence how  men  live  so  far  as  their  outward  condition 

60 


HOW  GOD  BRINGS  MEN  TO  JUDGMENT     6i 

is  concerned.     It  would  almost  seem  as  if  the  way  of 
righteousness  were  strewn  with  thorns,  while  the  way 
of  passion  and  selfishness  is  smooth-paved  and  easy. 
If  only  God  would  break  in  and  show  His  hand- 
that   is   the  cry  of  this  writer !     If  only  He  would 
intervene  to  smite  those  who  are  giving  themselves 
to  evil,  people  would  begin  to  reach   a   respect   for 
righteousness.     How  can  people  learn  to  do  right  so 
long  as  evil-doing  seems  to  pay?     Beneath  all  this, 
there  is  a  faith  to  which  somehow  good  men  in  their 
worst  moods   have   always  clung— the   faith  that  at 
the  bottom  the  plan  of  life  is  just  and  righteous,  and 
some   day   there   will    be   compensations.      Men   of 
faith  have  always  believed  that  present  distributions 
of  good   and   ill   are   only   temporary,  and   in   that 
thought   found   peace.     "The   day   is   coming,"   the 
early  Christians   cried  amid  their  torture.     "Faith,"^ 
says   Tertullian,   "is    patience   with   the    lamp    lit." 
That   light    of    faith   and   hope   has    given    to   the 
patience    of    persecuted     saints    its    unconquerable 
quality.     Some  day  God's  judgments  will  appear  and 
the  inhabitants  of  the  world  will  learn  righteousness. 
Now  in  this   craving  for  the  visible  judgments  of 
God   there   is   some   confusion  of  mind.     We   have 
learnt  from  Christ  since  then,  and  have  come  to  see 
that  peace  of  mind  is  not  dependent  upon  material 
reward.     A  Christian   man's   faith   in    goodness  has 
nothing  to   do  with  the  question  whether   goodness 
is  outwardly  successful  or  no. 

He  that  hath  light  within  his  own  clear  breast 
May  sit  i'  the  centre  and  enjoy  bright  day. 
But  he  that  hides  a  dark  soul  and  foul  thoughts 
Benighted  sits  beneath  the  mid-day  sun, 
Himself  is  his  own  dungeon. 


62  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

The  love  of  God  is  a  Christian  man's  own  reward, 
and  in  the  darkest  situation  he  has  seen  through 
Christ  a  light  upon  God's  face  which  scatters  his 
perplexities.  It  is  righteous  men,  moreover,  who 
make  a  righteous  world,  not  any  catastrophic  inter- 
vention of  God.  The  real  problem  is  how  to  bring 
men  to  a  sense  of  sin  and  awaken  them  to  a  love  of 
righteousness  which  shall  reflect  itself  in  all  their 
dealings  with  one  another.  The  only  judgment 
which  will  change  things  is  the  self-judgment  of  men 
who  come  to  see  their  own  hearts.  How  does  God 
bring  men  to  this  self-judgment?  that  is  the  question. 
Is  it  true  to  say  that  His  righteousness  is  never  so 
reflected  in  life  that  men  see  it  and  repent?  Is  it 
true  to  say  that  God  stands  back  all  the  time — the 
great  neutral — not  even  intervening  to  see  fair  play  ? 
How  does  God  bring  men  to  judgment? 

One  answer  is  that  men  are  judged  in  the  long 
run  by  the  reaction  on  their  lives  of  the  moral 
nature  of  things.  The  old  picture  of  God  seated  on 
a  throne  dispensing  rewards  according  to  merit,  like 
a  judge  in  a  Court  of  Law,  is  too  mechanical  for 
truth.  God's  real  judgments  are  in  the  laws  of  life 
which  have  a  moral  basis.  "  Every  day  is  a  judg- 
ment day,"  says  a  writer.  Every  day  we  are  being 
tested,  sifted,  settled  into  our  own  place  by  the  way 
in  which  we  deal  with  life — and  it  deals  with  us. 
Think  of  purity,  for  instance.  The  unclean  thought 
reacts  upon  the  body  and  sows  the  seeds  of  disease. 
Evil  living  brings  physical  disaster  sooner  or  later. 
The  most  terrible  disease  known  to  medical  science, 
the  most  prolific  of  trouble  in  all  directions,  comes 
through  the  dishonour  of  life's  finest  capacity.  The 
garden  of  our  deepest  joy  and  happiness  is  guarded 


HOW  GOD  BRINGS  MEN  TO  JUDGEMENT     63 

by  an  angel  with  a  flaming  sword.  People  may  say 
to  themselves  that  there  is  no  right  and  wrong — 
merely  foolishness  and  wisdom.  But  sooner  or  later 
the  broken  law  of  purity  works  out  its  ghastly 
revenges. 

Or  take  the  laws  which  govern  national  vigour 
and  prosperity.  The  page  of  history  flames  with 
the  judgments  of  God.  Nations  that  were  once 
strong  sink  into  the  dust,  and  when  you  track  the 
secret,  it  is  some  defiance  of  the  laws  of  righteous- 
ness. When  reverence  dies,  the  heart  of  a  nation 
fails.  When  purity  and  self-discipline  go,  a  people 
is  on  the  road  to  ruin.  Out  in  the  deserts  of  the 
East,  vast  monuments  have  been  discovered,  which 
speak  of  a  strength  and  skill  unsurpassed  in  history. 
We  ask,  as  we  look  at  them,  what  could  have  brought 
the  men  who  made  them  down  to  the  dust?  Kow 
did  the  springs  of  such  a  mighty  civilization  come 
to  dr)7  up  ?  The  secret  is  some  moral  failure  which 
spread  like  hidden  disease  upon  a  mighty  tree,  eating 
out  its  vitality,  till  a  breath  of  wind  which  once  would 
have  made  it  sink  its  roots  deeper  into  the  earth, 
brought  it  to  the  ground,  and  its  memory  remains 
only  in  the  splendid  ruin  of  what  once  it  was.  The 
struggle  of  life  in  such  a  world  as  this,  deals  severely 
with  any  weakness,  and  the  final  power  of  survival 
in  a  critical  hour  depends  on  loyalty  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  righteousness. 

Or  think  of  the  world  to-day,  seething  with  trouble, 
with  much  that  is  fine  and  noble  falling  into  ruin. 
Who  will  deny  that  the  world  has  come  to  this 
collapse  because  all  the  nations  were  more  or  less 
involved  in  a  wrong  way  of  international  life,  flout- 
ing the  law  of  brotherhood  through  national  timidity 


64  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

and  ambitions.  The  law  of  love  which  Christ  re- 
vealed is  no  mere  conception  of  a  dreamer.  It  is 
the  unveiling  of  the  secret  order  of  reality.  There 
is  no  life  in  God's  world  for  nations  which  find 
their  pride  in  strength  of  armies,  and  power  of 
fleets.  The  judgments  of  God  have  been  written — 
for  men  who  can  read  them— in  flaming  fires  across 
the  midnight  skies,  in  mangled  bodies  and  roofless 
homes,  in  cities  cowering  under  the  terror.  It  is 
mere  blindness  in  the  face  of  these  things  to  say 
there  is  no  open  judgment,  and  that  it  does  not 
matter  how  we  live. 

Or  think  of  those  deeper  secrets  of  the  soul  in 
which  life  takes  revenge  upon  the  selfishly  prosperous. 
What  of  the  man  who  finds  success  at  the  expense 
of  righteousness?  Is  he  always  happy?  Is  his  soul 
always  content?  Is  there  always  peace  in  his  heart? 
How  many  successful  people  have  a  death's  head  at 
their  table,  a  skeleton  in  the  cupboard?  Is  the 
selfish  man  really  at  ease?  Is  the  evil  liver  who 
may  have  escaped  the  physical  penalties  of  sin  never 
haunted  by  the  memory  of  what  he  might  have  been, 
stealing  like  a  ghost  about  his  pillow?  Mental 
specialists  are  familiar  with  cases  where  life  has  been 
poisoned  at  the  roots  by  some  moral  disloyalty  away 
back  in  the  past,  forgotten  long  ago,  but  still  working 
out  its  deadly  result  in  the  fears  and  inward  conflicts 
of  an  unbalanced  mind.  We  have  only  to  read  the 
newspapers  with  imagination,  to  see  behind  the  tragic 
stories  of  what  we  call  "  the  broken  conventions,"  the 
judgments  of  God. 

The  sinister  thing  in  the  world  to-day  is  not  the 
failure  to  apply  the  principles  of  Christ.  We  are 
faced  with  a  far  darker  peril,  the  repudiation  of  Christ 


now  GOD  BRINGS  MEN  TO  JUDGMENT     65 

altogether  as  the  moral  Master  of  the  world.  In 
many  cases  this  creed  of  moral  anarchy  is  no  more 
than  a  screen  against  a  secretly  protesting  con- 
science, but  it  is  there.  More  than  one  of  our 
novelists  and  playwriters  is  secretly  sapping  the 
foundations  of  society  with  ideas  that  turn  men  and 
women  into  "  moral  idiots."  They  play  with  the 
notion  that  if  men  and  women  are  only  sufficiently 
attracted  to  each  other,  that  is  enough  to  sanction 
any  kind  of  breach  of  the  moral  law.  But  the  great 
writers,  forced  by  artistic  sincerity,  have  to  tell  the 
truth,  and  the  whole  truth  is,  there  is  no  real  peace 
in  any  union  which  breaks  the  moral  laws  of  life. 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  in  one  of  his  pre-war  books,  tells 
the  story  of  two  people  who  broke  with  purity  in 
order  to  live  together.  He  makes  what  apology  he 
can  for  sin,  but  in  the  end  of  the  book,  because  he  is 
true  to  his  art,  the  truth  comes  out,  and  the  end  is 
tragedy.  They  are  leaving  London  together;  the 
woman  bursts  into  tears ;  and  over  the  man  there 
sweeps  the  shadow  of  remorse.  He  feels  that  they 
are  doing  each  other  a  deadly  wrong.  "  Why  had  we 
done  this  injury  to  one  another?  Why?"  They  are 
sinning  against  the  nature  of  things ;  and  the  nature 
of  things,  which  is  the  nature  of  God,  rises  up  against 
them  in  a  depression  and  dispeace  which  turns  the 
fancied  paradise  into  a  desert. 

We  may  feel  we  have  advanced  a  long  way  from 
the  shadow  of  Mount  Sinai  with  its  stern  negations, 
but  Mount  Sinai  stands  as  one  of  the  great  judo-ment- 
seats  of  history.  Its  laws  were  no  mere  conventions 
of  a  little,  obscure  nation.  They  were  the  revelations 
of  the  basic  constitution  of  man's  being,  which  for 
that  moment  flamed  into  the  light  that  he  might  see 
5 


66  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

his  way  and  learn  righteousness.  Not  for  nothing 
did  these  commandments  follow  upon  the  great  de- 
liverance in  which  Israel  found  liberty.  They  were 
the  inner  authority  of  right  without  which  their  new- 
found liberty  would  have  been  a  perilous  gift.  The 
outward  mastery  of  Pharaoh  was  shaken  off;  but 
there  would  have  been  no  real  progress  had  the 
inner  reverence  not  brought  them  into  a  diviner 
bondage.  The  commandments  stand  to-day  com- 
pleted in  Christ  and  taken  up  into  His  great  law 
of  love, — but  they  stand.  There  is  an  old  Spanish 
proverb,  "  God  does  not  pay  on  a  Saturday,  but  in 
the  end  He  pays."  Deep  in  our  natures  which  were 
created  by  love,  there  are  reverences  we  dare  not 
flout.  Behind  the  whole  moral  order  there  is  the 
passion  of  a  love  that  wills  our  freedom  and  our 
peace.  Sooner  or  later,  life  pulls  us  up  when  we  are 
on  the  wrong  road,  and  the  hand  that  smites,  has  in 
it  a  love  that  fears  for  our  character,  more  than  it 
fears  for  our  comfort.  "  Whither  shall  I  flee  from 
Thy  presence?  "  said  the  Psalmist.  "If  I  make  my 
bed  in  hell.  Thou  art  there."  What  can  he  mean 
but  this,  that  the  terror  and  pain  of  a  life  gone 
wrong  is  a  shadow  of  the  Divine  presence  which 
will  not  let  us  go,  loving  us  too  deeply  to  let  us 
escape  the  consequences  of  sin. 

But  some  one  may  say,  is  there  no  unhappiness  for 
those  who  take  the  right  way,  the  way  of  righteous- 
ness? Does  the  higher  road  not  often  lead  us  into 
difficulties?  Does  conscience  never  take  man  into 
the  desert?  Does  truth  never  demand  its  sacrifices? 
The  New  Testament  is  full  of  them ;  Christ  warned 
His  would-be  followers  that  if  they  were  true  to  Him 
they  would  certainly  get  into  trouble.     And  what  of 


now  GOD  BRINGS  MEN  TO  JUDGMENT     67 

those  who  suffer  for  the  sins  of  others,  bearing  in  their 
very  bodies  the  bitter  fruit  of  others'  sowing?  It  is  a 
deep  problem,  but  surely  there  is  all  the  difference 
between  the  suffering  of  the  man  whose  conscience  is 
clean,  and  that  of  the  man  who  knows  that  he  stands 
condemned  and  responsible.  There  is  a  whole  world 
between  the  pain  of  a  Christian  at  the  stake,  and  the 
torture  and  suffering  of  a  man  on  the  rack  of  a  vicious 
body.  In  the  one  case  there  is  a  joy  and  peace  which 
make  the  face  shine  amid  the  flames  ;  in  the  other, 
a  pain  and  anguish  of  the  heart  which  put  out  the 
very  light  of  heaven.  By  the  reactions  of  life  in  the 
slow  grinding  mills  of  circumstance,  God  brings  men 
judgment. 

But  there  is  a  way  far  more  direct  than  that. 
It  is  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ.  When  Christ 
came  into  the  world,  a  judgment-seat  was  erected 
among  mankind.  One  of  the  startling  facts  about 
Him  was  that  His  very  life  judged  men.  All 
kinds  of  people  pass  through  these  pages  before 
Him,  and  every  one  stands  judged,  measured,  and 
revealed  by  his  attitude  to  Jesus.  Every  man  is 
self-judged  by  the  stand  he  takes  with  regard  to 
Christ ;  and  by  that  stand  his  character  is  shaped, 
and  his  destiny  is  set,  even  though  his  attitude  be 
quite  unconscious.  Who  was  the  judge  when  Christ 
stood  before  Pilate  and  the  men  who  brought  Him 
there  for  trial  ?  What  does  history  say  about  them 
to-day?  It  was  they  who  were  standing  at  God's 
bar  that  morning,  lit  up  by  their  words  and  deeds 
and  silence  to  the  dimmest  recesses  of  their  souls. 
History  has  countersigned  that  judgment,  not  only 
in  its  opinion,  but  in  its  facts.  Forty  years  later,  the 
Temple    about  which   they  were   i:o    anxious  was  a 


6^  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

mass  of  ruins,  and  the  majesty  of  Rome  is  "  one  with 
Nineveh  and  Tyre." 

Christ  is  the  mouthpiece  of  God's  judgments 
to-day.  He  has  raised  a  standard  of  values  which 
has  penetrated  the  atmosphere.  By  His  light  the 
Church  judges  the  world,  and  the  world  judges  the 
Church.  There  is  no  higher  praise  than  to  call  a 
man  "a  real  Christian."  Whatever  new  standards 
may  threaten  the  authority  of  Jesus,  His  is  the  last 
word  upon  moral  questions.  He  judges  the  world 
because  His  light  shows  up  the  wrong  things,  and 
brings  about  their  cleansing.  Slavery  died  in  the 
long-  run  because  Christ  condemned  it.  Prison  life 
was  reformed  because  Christ's  light  shone  into  it. 
Our  slums  meet  us  to-day  with  haunting  horror  and 
rebuke  because  Christ  in  our  hearts  condemns  them. 
Men  feel  the  injustice  of  our  social  system  because 
it  conflicts  with  Christ's  standard  of  human  values. 
The  horror  of  war  is  uppermost  in  our  minds,  amid 
all  its  devastation,  because  Christ  has  awakened  the 
dream  of  brotherhood.  "  That  pure  light,"  says 
Alexander  Smith  in  an  essay  on  Christmas — "  that 
pure  light  makes  visible  the  darkness.  The  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  makes  the  morality  of  the  nations 
ghastly.  The  divine  love  makes  human  hate  stand 
out  in  dark  relief.  If  the  Christian  is  less  happy 
than  the  pagan,  and  at  times  he  is  so,  it  arises  from 
the  sting  of  his  finer  and  more  scrupulous  conscience." 
The  public  opinion  which  Christ  creates,  is  the  one 
irresistible  power  which  makes  for  justice  and  kindles 
the  fire  in  the  heart  of  every  reformer  which  evil 
cannot  put  out.     So  God  brings  men  to  judgment. 

But  this  raises  a  deeper  point.  Men  do  not  learn 
righteousness    till    they   are    brought   to   that    self- 


HOW  GOD  BRINGS  MEN  TO  JUDGMENT     69 

judgment  which  the  Bible  calls  the  "conviction  of 
sin."  It  is  one  thing  for  God  to  set  up  an  external 
tribunal  in  the  facts  of  life  and  the  verdict  of  public 
opinion ;  it  is  another  thing  for  a  man  to  accept  that 
judgment  and  bow  his  soul  before  it.  It  is  one  thing 
for  a  man  to  be  convinced  in  his  mind  or  body  that 
sin  does  not  pay ;  it  is  another  thing  for  him  to  be 
convinced  in  his  conscience  that  sin  is  wrong.  Till 
that  happens,  all  the  suffering  in  the  world  will  not 
make  men  learn  righteousness.  It  is  doubtful  even 
whether  men  learn  from  their  own  suffering  to  any 
extent.  Sometimes  a  man  or  a  nation  will  read  in 
the  pain  and  anguish  of  disaster  something  which 
brings  them  to  their  knees.  For  the  most  part  they 
only  learn  the  expediency  of  right,  which  is  a  very 
different  thing.  The  discomfort  of  suffering  is  a 
different  thing  from  the  horror  of  sin.  The  pain  of 
a  feeble  body  is  a  different  thing  from  the  anguish 
of  an  outraged  conscience.  The  one  may  only  make 
a  clever  strategist  devising  means  to  escape  the 
vengeance  of  life,  the  other  breaks  a  man  down  in 
sorrow  and  tears  and  brings  him  to  the  feet  of  God. 
The  judgments  of  God  have  not  taught  a  man 
righteousness,  till  he  has  fallen  on  his  knees  with 
the  cry,  "  Against  Thee,  Thee  only,  have  I  sinned, 
and  done  this  evil  in  Thy  sight."  And  it  takes 
more  than  his  own  suffering  to  do  that. 

What  is  the  power  by  which  God  brings  His 
self-judgment  home?  It  is  the  Cross.  Christ's 
judgment-bar  is  not  the  accusing  splendour  of 
His  life,  though  that  comes  home  to  us  when  we 
are  honest  with  ourselves.  The  final  judgment-bar 
whose  verdict  is  irresistible  is  Calvary,  where  God 
suffered   all   the  reactions  of  sin.     Calvary  was  the 


70  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

place  where  justice  seemed  to  reach  its  climax  of 
outrage;  but  Calvary  has  become  the  judgment- 
throne.  For  what  does  Calvary  say  to  us  when  we 
go  there  with  an  open  mind  ?  We  cannot  put  into 
words  what  Christ  put  into  a  Cross,  but  there  the 
selfishness  and  sin  of  the  hearts  of  men  came  to  fruit 
like  a  tree  in  full  autumn,  and  in  that  broken  body 
of  the  Son  of  God,  forced  to  take  a  criminal's  place, 
there  is  a  vision  of  sin  which  can  pierce  the  hardest 
heart.  Men  often  use  soft  words  about  sin.  They 
belittle  it,  cover  it  over  with  webs  of  self-excusing, 
which  betray  the  secret  protest  of  an  uneasy  con- 
science ;  but  in  the  Cross  and  all  it  meant  for  Jesus, 
the  camouflage  is  torn  away.  Sin  is  that  dark  and 
tragic  thing  in  the  human  heart  which  put  Christ 
to  death.  They  were  not  specially  bad  men  who 
crucified  Jesus.  They  were  just  like  ourselves;  but 
such  as  they  were,  their  sin  and  selfishness  and  wilful 
blindness  to  the  light  of  truth,  combined  to  make  the 
kind  of  world  in  which  the  Son  of  God  could  not 
live.  We  cannot  track  out  the  motive,  and  ambitions, 
both  individual  and  national  which  issued  in  the 
crucifixion  of  Christ,  without  feeling  a  shuddering 
sense  that  the  taint  of  these  things  is  in  our  own 
blood,  and  the  mark  of  them  in  our  own  dealings 
with  one  another  and  with  God.  Calvary  was  a 
judicial  murder  for  reasons  which  are  still  recognized 
as  legitimate  in  the  politics  of  the  world  and  the 
struggle  of  the  market-place.  But  we  cannot  see 
how  tragic  are  these  things  —  the  self-love  and 
pride  which  darken  the  world — till  God  makes  a 
screen  with  His  own  body  and  shows  them  up  in 
their  reality  upon  His  outraged  love.  Does  Calvary 
not  judge  us  as  we  look  at  it  in  this  light?     Looking 


HOW  GOD  BRINGS  MEN  TO  JUDGMENT     7 1 

at  Christ's  murderers,  does  it  not  make  us  feel  as  an 
old  saint  felt  when  a  man  of  respected  character  was 
found  out  in  some  moral  failure  and  flung  into  a 
prison  :  "  It  might  have  been  me  ! "  In  Masefield's 
lyrical  story  of  conversion,  it  is  this  appeal  which 
brings  the  sodden  drunkard  to  his  awakening,  when 
the  little  Quakeress  lifts  up  the  Cross: 

Saul  Kane,  she  said,  when  next  you  drink. 

Do  me  the  gentleness  to  think 

That  every  drop  of  drink  accurst 

Makes  Christ  within  you  die  of  thirst ; 

That  every  dirty  word  you  say 

Is  one  more  flint  upon  His  way, 

Another  thorn  about  His  head, 

Another  mock  by  where  He  tread. 

Another  nail,  another  Cross, 

All  that  you  are  is  that  Christ's  loss. 

Calvary  is  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ.  It  is  there 
we  read  God's  silent  verdict  and  realize  its  truth. 

What  is  this  strange  process  which  the  suffering 
Christ  sets  working  in  our  souls?  There  is  the 
awakening  of  the  sense  of  guilt,  for  one  thing,  w^hich 
means  the  conviction  that  we  are  responsible  for  our 
sin.  Guilt  is  no  mere  whimpering  weakness  of  the 
spirit.  The  sense  of  guilt  is  the  charter  of  our 
freedom.  It  is  the  conviction  of  our  souls  that  we 
are  not  the  mere  tools  of  an  evil  fate,  but  free  and 
responsible  agents. 

And  there  awakens  the  sense  of  a  personal  relation 
to  God,  which  in  our  sin  we  have  broken.  "  Father, 
I  have  sinned,"  was  the  prodigal's  cry  in  the  hour 
of  his  coming  to  himself.  These  things  are  all  part 
of  the  awakening  which  is  salvation.  Our  true  self  is 
found  in  our  sonship  to  God,  and  in  the  sense  of  sin  we 
realize  it.     If  there  had  been  no  sonship  there  would 


72  THE   VICTORY  OF  GOD  . 

have  been  no  sin.  Sin  is  the  wrong  relationship  of 
the  son  to  God  the  Father,  and  the  light  which 
reveals  our  sin  is  really  the  light  of  the  Father's  face. 
Have  you  seen  yourself  in  the  light  of  Christ  ?  Do 
you  realize  in  Him  what  you  are,  and  where  you 
stand, 

The  gap  between  what  is  and  what  may  be, 
And  into  what  abyss  the  soul  may  sink? 

The  Love  which  shows  you  yourself  is  a  love  which 
is  thereby  revealing  Himself.  Put  yourself  into  those 
pierced  hands!  Listen  to  the  love  that  condemns, 
and  you  will  hear  a  voice  which  welcomes  you  to  the 
Father's  fellowship.  "  This  My  son,"  He  will  say  to 
you,  with  your  burning  conscience — "this  My  son 
was  dead,  and  is  alive  again;  he  was  lost,  and  is 
found."  . 


BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF  GOD 

**  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world.** 
— John  i.  29. 

In  these  words  Jesus  Christ  was  introduced  by  John 
the  Baptist  to  a  waiting  world.  Their  authentic  nature 
has  been  disputed  by  several  scholars.  They  do  not 
appear  in  any  other  of  the  Gospels.  It  is  strange, 
men  have  argued,  that  John  the  Baptist,  who  could 
know  nothing  about  the  future  death  of  Jesus,  should 
use  words  of  such  tremendous  insight.  "  Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God."  This  was,  of  course,  a  reference  to 
the  lamb  which  was  sacrificed  in  Jewish  ritual  to 
atone  for  the  sins  of  the  people.  How  did  John 
come  to  mirror  so  clearly  what  came  to  pass,  and 
what  the  world  has  always  found  in  the  death  of 
Jesus?  Imagination  may  give  us  some  clue  to  the 
secret  of  this  insight.  A  writer  suggests  that  the 
moment  of  Christ's  baptism  was  the  moment  of  the 
great  discovery.  John  had  come  to  the  world  with 
a  message  like  that  of  the  ancient  prophets.  He 
carried  the  fiery  cross  of  a  moral  challenge,  urging 
the  people  to  forsake  their  sins  and  they  would  find 
forgiveness.  We  get  some  little  idea  from  the  few 
notes  of  his  preaching,  of  the  kind  of  things  John  said 
to  them.  No  Savonarola  ever  used  the  scourge  of 
denunciation  so  forcefully  as  John.  All  kinds  of 
evil   came   under   his   lash    and   there    was   a   great 


73 


74  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

awakening.  Those  who  came  determined  to  begin 
a  new  life,  he  took  down  to  the  water  for  baptism, 
which  was  the  sign  of  their  cleansing,  and  there, 
before  the  act  of  baptism,  he  listened  to  their  con- 
fessions. What  stories  he  heard  there  on  the  quiet 
lake  shore,  we  can  dimly  imagine !  What  tragedies 
of  ruined  homes  and  crippled  souls  and  broken  peace 
were  poured  into  his  ear !  And  to  him  at  length 
Jesus  came  for  baptism,  and  would  take  no  refusal. 
At  the  moment  of  confession,  John  waited  and 
wondered  what  He  would  have  to  say — He  who  had 
lived  a  blameless  life  these  thirty  years.  And  Christ, 
too,  made  His  confession,  but  it  was  not  a  confession 
of  His  own  sins.  It  was  the  sin  of  the  world  that  was 
upon  His  soul,  weighing  down  His  spirit,  breaking 
His  heart,  filling  His  fine  face  with  shadows.  The 
world's  sin  and  evil  lay  upon  His  soul  and  poured 
from  His  lips  in  a  great  flood  of  vicarious  penitence. 

Desperate  tides  of  the  great  world's  anguish 
Forced  through  the  channels  of  a  single  heart. 

As  John  heard  Him  speak,  his  mind  lit  up  with  the 
flash  of  a  great  discovery.  A  veil  was  lifted  at  the 
moment  from  a  great  mystery.  John  had  often 
preached  the  forgiveness  of  God — the  remission  of 
sins.  He  believed  in  God's  forgiveness,  up  to  the 
hilt.  For  himself,  he  was  sure  of  it,  as  sure  as  he 
was  of  his  own  existence.  But  forgiveness  had  its 
problems  for  his  thoughtful  mind.  How  could  God 
forgive?  Such  stories  of  human  devilry  as  he  had 
listened  to,  stories  which  had  defiled  his  very  ears 
and  scorched  his  soul !  How  could  God  forgive  such 
people?  John  was  no  prig,  no  self-satisfied  Pharisee; 
but  a  man  does  not  need  to  be  a  prig  to  listen  to 


BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF  GOD  75 

some  stones  of  human  sin  or  to  read  them  in  the 
daily  newspapers,  and  then  to  ask  himself  how  God 
can  forgive.  Henry  Drummond  once  said  that  again 
and  again  after  he  had  spent  an  evening  listening 
to  confessions  of  sin,  the  question  had  been  forced 
from  him — How  can  God  bear  it  ?  How  can  God 
forgive?  Some  feeling  like  this  had  doubtless  been 
in  John's  mind  as  the  underworld  of  human  sin  had 
been  opened  up  in  confession. 

There  was  another  problem  too.  He  had  had  many 
converts,  but  they  did  not  last.  They  had  confessed 
and  been  assured  of  God's  forgiveness  and  had  gone 
out  to  live  the  same  kind  of  life  as  they  were  living 
before.  They  were  bound  in  the  shackles  of  a  moral 
impotence  which  his  preaching  was  powerless  to  break. 
They  needed  some  stronger  dynamic  than  his  poor 
words  could  give,  some  stronger  hope,  some  more  pierc- 
ing vision,  to  break  the  fatal  spell  and  set  them  free. 
And  when  Christ  stood  before  him,  confessing  the 
sins  of  the  world,  with  the  shadow  of  an  agony  falling 
deep  and  dark  over  His  soul,  in  a  flash  of  divine 
insight  John  saw  a  picture  which  made  things  clear. 
He  saw  a  lamb  as  it  had  been  slain  —  the  poor 
pathetic  patient  victim  of  the  Jewish  altar,  slain  in 
man's  age-long  effort  to  get  rid  of  sin.  For  the 
moment  Christ  filled  that  picture.  He  was  God's 
own  Lamb,  God's  own  Sacrifice,  and  John  cried  out, 
"  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the  sin 
of  the  world." 

This  word  is  John's  contribution  towards  the 
solution  of  the  biggest  problem  of  history  —  the 
personality  of  Jesus  Christ.  Who  was  Jesus  ?  What 
was  His  nature?  Where  do  we  place  Him  ?  Every 
otKer  great  man  you  can  put  in  some  niche,  to  which 


'^6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

he  belongs,  some  compartment  of  thought  or  action. 
He  may  be  a  great  thinker,  or  hero,  or  saint.  But 
Christ  stands  alone.  Try  to  squeeze  Him  into  a 
dictionary  of  human  biography  and  you  will  leave 
cut  something,  something  which  the  scientific  historian 
or  literary  biographer  cannot  catch,  and  that  some- 
thing is  everything.  What  do  we  make  of  the 
problem  of  Jesus  ?  The  moment  we  try  to  classify 
Jesus  we  realize  His  uniqueness.  It  is  not  enough 
to  say,  "  Behold  the  man  "  ;  we  must  get  deeper.  It 
is  not  enough  to  say,  "Behold  the  teacher,"  as 
Nicodemus  did.  It  is  not  enough  to  say,  "  Behold 
the  martyr."  We  do  not  reach  reality  in  our  view  of 
Christ  till  we  can  say,  "  Behold  the  Saviour  of  the 
world."  "  Thou  shalt  call  His  name  Jesus :  for  He 
shall  save  His  people  from  their  sins."  That  was 
the  first  great  word  that  heralded  His  coming.  We 
do  not  see  Christ  clearly,  till  we  see  Him  in  relation 
to  sin.  In  the  last  resort,  He  has  to  do  with  our 
sin,  not  with  our  failure ;  with  the  world's  evil,  not 
with  its  suffering ;  with  the  redemption  of  humanity, 
not  with  its  reformation ;  with  a  new  heart,  not 
with  a  better  world.  Make  of  it  what  we  will,  it  is 
against  that  hidden  rock  of  sin  that  the  world  is  for 
ever  making  shipwreck.  The  world  needs  the  gifts 
of  various  kinds  of  men.  It  needs  leaders,  teachers, 
financiers,  statesmen.  But  its  deepest  need  is  a 
Saviour.  It  is  through  that  need  we  see  the  value  of 
Jesus;  for  the  measure  of  our  need  is  the  measure  of 
our  vision.  The  man  whose  need  is  deepest  finds 
in  Christ  most  of  all.  But  the  man  whose  need  is 
deepest — most  beyond  this  world's  curing — is  he  who 
has  come  to  realize  his  own  moral  impotence  and 
woi  thlessness  in  the  face  of  God,  and  has  been  brought 


BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF  GOD  ^7 

into  the  mood  to  cry  out,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a 
sinner."  It  is  to  that  man,  in  that  mood,  and  in  that 
dungeon  of  deepest  need,  that  Christ  comes  rising 
upon  the  darkness,  as  if  "  in  the  midst  of  a  dark 
night,  day  suddenly  broke."  John  was  bidding  the 
world  look  at  Christ  when  thus  he  saw  Him  go; 
but  more,  he  was  telling  the  world  what  to  look  for, 
if  they  would  find  the  real  deep  secret  of  Jesus. 
"  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world." 

Let  us  try  to  get  into  the  heart  of  this  deep  saying, 
if  we  can.  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  " — that  means 
sacrifice ;  it  suggests  an  altar ;  it  foreshadows  the 
Cross.  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  " — it  is  a  suffer- 
ing Saviour  who  takes  away  the  sin  of  the  world ; 
that  much  becomes  clear.  That  much  has  always 
been  clear  to  the  heart  of  the  world.  The  Saviour- 
hood  of  Christ  has  always  been  associated  with  His 
Cross.  Christ's  power  to  help  us  and  to  forgive  us 
has  always  been  mirrored  in  Calvary.  How  does  the 
suffering  Christ  become  Saviour?  That  is  what  we 
want  to  know.  How  does  the  dying  Saviour  take 
away  sin  ?  It  is  true,  our  salvation  does  not  depend 
upon  our  theory  of  the  Atonement.  It  depends  on 
our  experience  of  Christ's  love.  There  are  people 
who  try  to  pin  down  the  gospel  of  Christ  to  a  certain 
theory  of  why  Christ  died,  or  how  the  death  of  Christ 
takes  away  sin.  It  does  not  greatly  matter  what  our 
theory  of  the  Atonement  is,  so  long  as  we  have  the 
experience.  The  great  doctrines  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  only  efforts  to  describe  experience,  not 
cast-iron  moulds  into  which  experience  must  be  run. 
We  are  saved  not  by  any  doctrine  of  atonement,  or 
any  other  doctrine,  but  through  our  own  insight  into  the 


78  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

grace  and  love  of  Christ,  awakening  our  response  trt 
trust  and  faith.  "  Not  by  the  works  of  righteousness 
which  we  have  done  " — nor  by  the  theological  doctrines 
we  have  believed — "but  according  to  His  mercy  He 
saved  us."  To  see  Christ  in  such  a  way  that  we 
experience  the  redeeming  grace — that  is  the  main 
thino-.  But  we  have  minds  that  crave  to  understand, 
and  there  are  prejudices  and  presuppositions  of  the 
mind  which  stand  in  the  way  of  our  seeing  Jesus 
and  obscure  the  saving  vision. 

One  of  the  oldest  questions  in  the  world  since  the 
death  of  Christ  has  been  the  question — why  was  it 
necessary  for  Christ  to  suffer  and  to  die?  Round 
that  question  a  theological  battle  has  raged  for 
centuries.  Did  Christ  need  to  have  died?  "Ought 
He  to  have  suffered  all  these  things  and  so  to  enter 
into  His  glory?"  That  was  the  question  which  the 
disciples  debated.  They  could  not  understand  it  at 
all.  For  them,  His  death  was  tragic,  the  last  grim 
horror  which  brought  down  the  night  of  sheer 
despair.  The  answer  is,  that  in  the  world  of  His 
day,  living  such  a  life  as  He  lived,  preaching  such 
truth  as  He  preached,  it  was  inevitable  that  He  would 
be  put  to  death.  Various  forces  concentrated  in  the 
crucifixion  of  Christ,  but  they  all  come  to  one  thing 
in  the  end.  It  was  sin  that  slew  Jesus  Christ.  It 
was  because  men  would  not  listen  to  Him,  that  they 
rose  and  swept  Him  out  of  their  world.  This  is  not 
to  say  that  Christ  died  unwillingly.  He  was  not  a 
mere  victim  of  a  tragedy.  He  was  always  master  of 
the  situation.  He  saw  what  was  sure  to  happen  and 
gave  Himself  up  to  the  events  that  were  closing  in 
about  His  life.  He  saw  that  the  road  led  to  a  cross 
upon    the   hill,  and   chose   it.     It  was   a   calculated 


BEHOLD  THE  LA^Hi  OF  GOD  79 

sacrifice.  He  died  because  He  willed  to  die,  because 
in  such  a  world  as  this,  it  was  the  inevitable  end  to  a 
life  of  truth  and  love.  There  is  a  story  of  a  soldier 
with  one  arm,  who  was  standing  in  the  streets  one 
day  when  an  acquaintance  canne  up  to  him,  and  said, 
"  Well,  old  man,  I  see  this  war  has  taken  it  out  of 
you."  "  Oh  no,"  said  the  other,  looking  at  his  empty 
sleeve ;  "  I  gave  it."  That  is  the  point  of  view  from 
which  we  must  begin  to  look  at  the  death  of  Christ. 
Sin  took  Christ's  life,  but  Christ  gave  it ;  and  in  that 
giving.  He  was  more  than  master  of  events.  For  it 
is  the  truth  of  the  New  Testament,  that  the  sin  that 
put  Him  on  a  cross  signed  with  that  act  its  own  death- 
warrant  and  put  into  the  hands  of  Christ  the  mightiest 
weapon  against  itself.  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God, 
who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 

But  how  does  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  take  away  sin  ? 
In  the  first  place,  it  awakens  men  to  the  reality  and  the 
consciousness  of  sin,  and  that  is  the  first  step  toward 
taking  it  away.  No  man  can  get  rid  of  sin  in  his  life 
till  he  has  faced  it,  realized  its  power,  accepted 
responsibility  for  it,  and  so  nailed  it  like  a  false  coin  to 
the  counter  that  it  shall  no  more  pass  into  circulation 
in  his  life — with  his  consent  at  least.  Sin  must  be 
acknowledged  before  it  can  be  taken  away.  It  must 
be  faced  before  it  can  be  cured.  In  certain  forms  of 
mental  trouble  where  patients  suffer  from  various 
fears,  the  process  of  mind-cure  by  which  they  are 
treated,  is  to  bring  to  their  minds  and  get  them  to 
face,  the  thing  which  has  produced  the  trouble.  They 
may  be  quite  unconscious  of  it.  It  may  lie  hidden 
among  the  forgotten  secrets  of  memory,  but  before 
there  can  be  peace  of  mind,  the  thing  must  be  dug 
up  and  faced,  and  then  it  can  be  put  away.     Often 


80  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

the  very  facing  of  it  will  "  raze  out  the  written  trouble 

of  the  brain."     It  is  the  very  san:ie  with  the  soul  and 

the  dispeace  of  sin.     Sin  must  be  faced  and  realized 

and  condemned.     No   gospel   will    do   anything  but 

touch  the  surface  of  life  which  does  not  deal  with  sin 

as  a  reality.     There  are  gospels  of  so-called  healthy- 

mindedness  which  bid  us    believe  there  is  no  such 

thing   as   sin,  that   it   is   only  a   theological  bogey, 

creeping  out  in   the  twilight  of  our  ignorance  like 

shadows  that  frighten  children  ;  and  the  thing  to  do 

with  it  is  just  to  fill  the  world  with  merriment  and 

sunshine  and  to  say  to  ourselves  with  a  brave  gesture 

that  the  thing  is  not  there.     The  war  has  helped  to 

disillusion  us.     It  has  shown  us  there  is  that  in  the 

heart  of  man  which,  when  the  hand  of  God  is  flung 

off  and  the  conventions  of  civilization  are  broken,  will 

awaken  to  fury  and  turn  him  into  a  beast.     But  the 

lurid  forms  of  sin  are  not  the  worst  forms  of  it.     The 

sins  that  keep  life  from  its  power  and  peace,  the  sins 

which  in  the  last  reality  wreck  the  world,  are  not  the 

sensational  sins.     They  are  such  sins  as  pride,  and 

jealousy,  and  greed,  and  the  selfish  spirit,  and  the 

hate  and  envy  which  have  their  seats  in   many  an 

outwardly  blameless  life.     How  are  men  awakened 

to  these  ?     In  the  last  resort,  there  is  one  vision  alone 

which  will  bring  the  revelation  of  what  pride  is,  and 

selfishness  and  hatred  and  jealousy  and  greed.     It  is 

the  Cross  of  Christ.     For  it  was  these  things  coming 

to  a  head  which  crucified  the    Son   of  God.     That 

broken  body  hanging  there  so  limp  and  wan,  of  One 

who  was  the  fairest  life  and  the  noblest  spirit  that 

ever  breathed  this  air  of  time,  the  very  Son  of  God — 

that  broken  body  was  the  fruit  of  sin.     That  is  the 

kind  of  thing  sin  is,  its  nature  in  your  heart  and 


BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF   GOD  8i 

mine -it  crucified  the  holy  Son  of  God.      Can  we 
look  long  at  the  Crucified  and  not  see  that?     Can 
we  stand  long  under  the  shadow  of  Calvary  and  not 
feel  it  ?     It  is  for  this,  Christ  died,  this  awakening  to 
the  reality  and  poison  of  sin ;  for  there  was  no  other 
way  of  awakening  the  world  but  to  die,  to  let  sin  take 
its  full  course  and  come  to  its  tragic  culmination  m 
the  bloodv  Cross  of  Calvary.     And  that  awakening  to 
its  deadliness  is  the  first  step  to  the  loosening  of  the 
shackles.      "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh 
away  the  sin  of  the  world." 

But  further,  the  Crucified   Christ   sets   free    from 
sin,  because  He  reveals  the  utter  love  and  forgiveness 
of  God,   and  enables   us   to   realize  it  and  make  it 
ours.     Was  the  Cross  a  necessity  to  our  forgiveness? 
Did  Christ  need  to  die  in  order  that  we  might  be 
forgiven  ?     Did  the  death  of  Christ  purchase  forgive- 
nesses for  us,  as  the  old  theology  puts  it  ?     There  is  no 
warrant  for  that  in  the  New  Testament.     John  the 
Baptist   preached   the   forgiveness   of    sins.      Christ 
blessed  men  with  the  pardon  of  their  sins  long  before 
He  died.     Many  of  the  Old  Testament  saints  experi- 
enced  the  forgiveness  of  God.     "  Bless  the  Lord,  O 
my   soul,   who    forgiveth    all    thine   iniquities,   who 
healeth  all  thy  diseases."     "  As  far  as  the  east  is  from 
the  west,  so  far  hath  He  removed  our  transgressions 
from  us."     There  it  is,  and  there  is  no  mention  of 
sacrifice.     But  how  many  of  them  realized  this  for- 
giveness?    How  many  of  them  could    see  the  love 
that  forgave  ?     Think  of  the  sacrifices  which   made 
the  Jewish  altars  reek  with  blood.     Why  these  sacri- 
fices?    Why  these  reeking  altars?     Because  there  is 
something  in  the  heart  awakened  to  the  fact  of  sin 
which  makes  it  terribly  difficult  for  us  to  realize  the 
6 


82  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

forgiveness  of  God.  We  cannot  forgive  ourselves. 
How  can  God  forgive  us — the  Holy  God — the  Light 
in  whom  there  is  no  darkness,  whose  light  searches 
our  secret  hearts  to  the  last  fragment  of  our  motives 
and  desires?  Turn  to  the  great  stories  of  literature, 
The  Scarlet  Letter,  Shakespeare's  Macbeth,  and  a 
host  of  others  by  the  really  great  masters  whose 
books  mirror  the  deep  places  of  the  soul,  and  you 
will  find  this  sense  of  the  unforgivable  thing  lying 
foul  about  the  guilty  conscience.  To  bring  the  assur- 
ance of  forgiving  love,  Christ  died.  For  the  Cross 
reveals  a  love  which  loved  on,  amid  the  bitterest 
shafts  of  human  hatred,  amid  the  scorn  and  jeers  of 
traitors,  and  in  the  very  agony  of  death  cried,  "  Father, 
forgive  them ;  for  they  knov/  not  what  they  do." 

That  vision  of  Christ  upon  His  Cross  brings 
home  the  amazing  reality  of  the  divine  forgiveness. 
"  Though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  as 
wool " ;  it  is  an  easy  thing  to  say  that.  It  is  the  most 
difficult  thing  to  get  people  to  believe  it,  as  those  ot 
us  know  who  have  tried.  And  Christ  found  the  same 
difficulty.  The  world  would  not  realize  the  sin  which 
darkened  it,  and  having  realized  it,  could  not  get 
rid  of  its  fatal  blight  and  guilt  till  men  came  and 
stood  before  the  Cross,  where  they  saw  both  things 
together,  the  reality  of  sin  and  the  assurance  of 
forgiveness.  Sin  cannot  remain  before  that  vision  of 
love.  And  that  vision  of  love  is  the  only  thing  that 
can  put  sin  away.  There  is  something  in  us  all, 
when  sin  comes  home  to  us,  which  refuses  to  be 
content  with  a  cheap  and  easy  forgiveness.  There  is 
something  which  can  find  no  peace  save  in  a  pardon 
which  comes  through  sacrifice  and  a  broken  heart. 
The  blame  which  Christ  reveals  in  us  is  the  unpardon- 


BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF  GOD  83 

able  thing  which  cannot  be  smiled  away  by  any 
genial  gospel.  The  forgiveness  which  brings  peace 
is  the  assurance  of  the  love  of  God  coming  to  us,  as 
it  were,  over  the  dead  body  which  is  sin's  darkest 
deed.  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away 
the  sin  of  the  world." 

This  is  not  the  way,  perhaps,  in  which  some  of  us 
would  interpret  the  experience  of  the  Atonement. 
Every  view  of  the  Cross  of  Christ — and  there  have 
been  many  views  of  it — is  just  man's  feeble  attempt 
to  put  into  words  what  Christ  put  into  His  Cross, 
the  love  of  God  which  passeth  knowledge,  that  love 
which  is  able  to  redeem  the  worst  and  to  forgive  the 
vilest  and  to  raise  the  crippled  life  and  to  turn  the 
very  scars  of  sin  into  a  purifying  memory  by  which 
the  heart  is  kept  soft  and  suppliant  and  alive  to 
God.  If  we  are  sure  of  that  love,  if  we  are  seeing 
into  its  depth  and  splendour,  it  matters  little  by  what 
theory  we  try  to  explain  the  miracle.  If  the  Cross 
strikes  home  to  the  heart,  with  the  love  and  forgive- 
ness which  cleanses  and  redeems,  and  brings  peace 
to  the  soul,  and  power  to  the  will,  we  can  use  what 
words  we  may  to  describe  what  Christ  has  done, 
provided  we  say  nothing  which  will  conflict  with  the 
character  of  God. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  who  take  the  more 
modern  view  are  apt  to  disparage  the  message  of  the 
Cross  of  Christ.  I  do  not  care  how  you  state  the 
meaning  of  the  Cross :  if  you  do  not  see  the  love  of 
God  there,  you  are  missing  the  heart  of  the  Gospel. 
The  late  Dr.  Denney  was  once  talking  to  his  students 
of  the  tendency  of  some  Protestants  to  minimize  the 
Cross,  and  he  said,  "  If  I  had  the  choice  between 
such  a  one  and  a  Roman  priest  holding  up  the  Cross 


84  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

to  a  dying  man  and  saying,  '  God  loves  like  that,'  I 
had  rather  be  the  priest."  There  is  the  point— God 
loves  like  that !  That  is  the  message  of  the  Cross. 
Our  sense  of  God's  love  will  depend  on  what  we  see 
in  the  Cross  of  Christ  in  relation  to  our  own  sin  and 
our  own  need  and  the  need  of  the  perishing  world. 
"  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the  sin 
of  the  world." 

It  is  just  here  that  so  many  people  fail  of  the 
great  salvation,  the  full  deliverance  which  sets  them 
free.  "Taketh  away"  the  sin  of  the  world — what 
does  that  mean?  The  word  in  the  Greek  is  the 
same  John  used  describing  how  the  women  went 
to  the  sepulchre  and  found  the  stone  taken  away, 
the  stone  which  hid  their  Lord  and  kept  Him  in  the 
grave.  The  taking  away  of  the  stone  was  the  prelude 
to  the  fellowship  of  Jesus.  It  was  the  prelude  for 
them  to  the  new  life  of  union  with  Christ  and  of 
miraculous  service  for  Christ,  which  brought  down 
the  power  of  heathendom  and  made  a  new  world. 
There  is  wonderful  illumination  in  this  picture  of 
what  it  means  to  take  away  our  sin,  for  the  taking 
away  of  sin  is  nothing  if  it  be  not  the  means  to  a 
new  life  and  a  recovered  fellowship  with  God.  Christ 
rolls  away  by  the  vision  of  Calvary,  the  thing  that  is 
keeping  our  spirit  from  resurrection  and  from  power. 
He  takes  away  sin's  power  to  deceive  us,  to  blind  us, 
to  drug  our  spiritual  sense.  He  takes  away  the 
power  of  sin  to  hang  round  our  necks  a  chain  of  evil 
memories.  He  takes  away  the  power  of  sin  to  blight 
our  hopes  and  to  enfeeble  us  by  despair.  To  see 
there  the  love  of  God,  rebuking,  awakening,  forgiving, 
is  the  secret  of  that  risen  life  which  is  a  new  creation. 
Here,  gratitude  wells  up  like  an  everlasting  spring. 


BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF  GOD  8$ 

The  knowledge  of  that  forgiveness  is  the  master- 
motive,  the  kindling  point  of  Christian  enthusiasm. 
Walter  Pater  describes  with  great  imaginative  insight 
the  gathering  of  a  little  Christian  Church  of  the  early 
centuries  in  a  house  in  Rome.  One  of  the  things  he 
pictures  is  a  certain  look  upon  the  faces  of  them  all 
— the  expression  of  "a  wonderful  sort  of  gladness, 
the  look  of  men  upon  whom  some  all-subduing 
experience  had  wrought  heroically  and  who  still 
remembered  a  great  deliverance."  The  knowledge 
that  we  are  forgiven  men  and  women  is  the  abiding 
secret  of  power  for  character,  ever  renewed  and 
deepened,  as  we  keep  our  lives  open  to  the  vision  of 
Calvary.  Whatever  springs  dry  up  in  the  weary 
ways  of  life,  that  spring  never  fails.  And  more,  it  is 
the  dynamic  of  all  great  service.  The  socialist  groups 
have  a  Sunday  school  and  a  hymn  book  of  their 
own,  and  in  it  they  have  put  Matheson's  great  hymn, 
"  O  Love  that  wilt  not  let  me  go."  But  they  have 
left  out  the  last  verse.  They  sing  of  love,  and  joy  and 
light,  but  of  the  Cross  through  which  these  things  live 
to  the  world,  they  know  nothing,  and  will  have  noth- 
ing to  do.  The  defect  is  fatal.  To  miss  the  Cross 
in  our  penitence  and  the  Cross  in  our  service,  is  to 
meet  the  evil  of  the  world  with  a  sword  which  has  lost 
its  edge  and  to  stand  powerless  against  the  plague  of 
our  own  hearts.  It  is  to  face  the  suffering  earth  with 
a  soul  devitalized.  There  is  no  life  except  by  death. 
There  is  no  resurrection  save  through  Calvary. 

0  Cross  that  liftest  up  my  head, 

I  dare  not  ask  to  fly  from  Thee ; 

1  lay  in  dust  life's  glory  dead, 

And  from  the  ground  there  blossoms  red, 
Life  that  shall  endless  be. 


THE  OVERCOMING  OF  DEATH 

**  Jesus  Christ  hath  abolished   death,  and  hath  brought  life  and 
immortality  to  light  through  the  gospel." — 2  Tim.  i.  lo. 

The  Easter  message  is  like  a  diamond  with  many 
facets.  It  flashes  its  glory  into  our  life  in  all 
directions.  The  more  we  look  into  it  the  deeper  we 
see ;  the  more  it  scatters  the  darkness  which  gathers 
upon  our  perplexing  way.  But  the  central  light  and 
heart  of  glory  is  its  message  about  death,  and  its 
message  about  death  is  the  message  of  all  light  about 
darkness — the  discovery  that  it  is  not  there.  The 
sun  rises  and  the  darkness  which  looked  so  solid  and 
impenetrable  has  gone.  It  has  lifted  from  our  spirits, 
as  the  night  is  banished  from  the  landscape  when 
the  dawn  breaks  over  the  hills.  Jesus  Christ  hath 
abolished  death. 

This  statement  was  more  than  faith ;  it  was 
experience.  For  three  days  Christ  had  been  lost  to 
His  disciples  in  a  grave,  but  Easter  had  brought  Him 
back  stronger  and  more  radiant  than  ever.  So  far 
as  their  friendship  with  Christ  was  concerned,  death 
had  ceased  to  count.  The  world  in  which  they 
walked  with  Him  was  a  world  from  which  death  had 
disappeared.  For  the  future,  it  did  not  enter  into 
their  calculations.  They  did  not  reckon  with  it  when 
they  made  their  plans.  Perhaps  you  will  say  there 
is  nothing  so  very  uncommon  in  this  recklessness  of 
death.     There  are  countless  people  who  have  lost  the 

86 


THE  OVERCOMING  OF  DEATH  87 

fear  of  it.  When  a  great  challenge  or  a  great  duty 
stirs  the  blood,  it  sweeps  our  hearts  clean  of  the 
fear  of  death ;  but  it  is  one  thing  not  to  fear  it,  and 
another  thing  not  to  believe  in  it.  It  is  one  thing  to 
shut  our  eyes  to  it ;  it  is  another  thing  to  face  it  and 
see  through  it.  That  was  where  the  New  Testament 
men  stood. 

Christ  had  annihilated  death  for  them,  He  had 
abolished  death.  That  is  the  great  Christian  victory, 
and  it  has  penetrated  very  deep  into  our  lives.  One 
hardly  ever  meets  a  bereaved  soul,  man  or  woman, 
who  in  the  first  shock  of  grief  is  troubled  about  the 
problem  of  death.  Grief  covers  the  sky  with  a  pall  of 
cloud,  but  in  most  cases  there  is  a  triumphant  feeling 
that  behind  the  cloud  the  light  is  shining. 

This  world  of  ours  is  pagan  in  many  respects, 
but  it  is  lit  with  the  after-shine  of  the  resurrection. 
The  Easter  fact  is  in  our  blood,  part  of  our  Christian 
inheritance.  In  the  Old  Testament  there  is  hardly 
any  reference  to  immortality.  The  hope  of  it  had  not 
yet  emerged.  And  if  you  turn  to  the  inscriptions  on 
the  ancient  tombs  of  the  heathen  dead,  you  will  find 
such  inscriptions  as  this,  "  To  the  sweetest  babe  whom 
angry  gods  committed  to  eternal  sleep,"  or  this,  "  I 
lived  while  I  lived  well,  now  my  story  is  finished." 
Walk  through  one  of  our  modern  burying-places,  and 
you  will  find  here  and  there,  it  is  true,  the  broken 
pillar  and  the  note  of  unavailing  sorrow,  but  for  the 
most  part  faith  breaks  out  in  such  triumphant  words 
as  these,  "  Asleep  in  Jesus,"  "  Because  I  live,  ye  shall 
live  also."  Our  churchyards  to-day  are  resonant 
with  the  music  of  life.  Those  who  set  up  these 
memorials  may  show  little  sign  of  any  great  faith 
through  the  daily  routine,  but  deep  in  their  hearts 


«8  THE   VICTORY   OF  GOD 

this  hope  is  buried,  and  when  sorrow  comes  and  stirs 
the  depths  it  rises  to  the  surface  and  becomes  a 
raft  which  saves  them  out  of  the  wreck.  It  is  part 
of  Christ's  great  contribution  to  life.  He  hath 
abolished  death. 

How  is  it  done?  Paul  goes  on  to  tell  us.  It  is 
done  in  the  only  way  in  which  death  can  be  abolished 
— by  the  revelation  of  life.  He  hath  brought  life 
and  immortality  to  light. 

Stevenson  tells  of  a  lad  who  was  shipwrecked  on 
an  island  in  the  West  of  Scotland.  He  was  not 
very  far  from  the  mainland,  which  lay  mocking  him 
with  its  little  homesteads  and  its  look  of  smiling 
comfort,  while  he  wandered  on  the  islet — a  prisoner 
— with  the  great  deep  closing  him  in.  One  day, 
when  near  the  very  depth  of  despair,  he  hailed  a 
passing  boat  expecting  to  be  taken  off.  In  reply  the 
fishermen  only  smiled  and  shouted  some  message 
which  he  found  it  difficult  to  catch,  but  at  last  the 
truth  flashed  into  his  mind.  He  ran  to  where  the 
shore  came  nearest  to  the  mainland,  and  found  that 
the  sea  which  had  looked  so  deep  was  now  sunk  at 
low  tide  to  a  mere  trickle  of  water  across  which  he 
waded  with  ease.  In  a  moment  the  sea's  ugly  threat 
of  separation  was  abolished.  The  terror  was  only 
make-believe.  What  looked  an  impassable  sea  was 
really  a  ford.  In  the  same  way  death  is  a  small  thing 
when  you  have  seen  Christ's  vision  of  life.  It  is  only 
a  gateway  to  a  larger  world — a  passage  where  our 
feet 

Fall  on  the  seeming  void 
And  find  the  rock  beneath. 

Now  let  us  go   deeper.      How  does  Christ  bring 
immortality  to   light?     It    is  the   same   process   as 


THE  OVERCOMING   OF  DEATH  89 

occurs  in  the  making  of  any  great  discovery,  of  such 
a  physical  fact,  for  instance,  as  electricity  or  wireless 
telegraphy.  The  first  thing  that  happens  is  the 
quickening  of  a  desire.  The  heart  must  be  awakened 
to  need  it  and  to  demand  it.  The  first  thoughts  of 
wireless  telegraphy,  for  example,  came  to  man's  mind 
a  century  ago,  but  the  demand  for  it  did  not  arise 
till  ordinary  telegraphy  had  advanced  some  distance 
and  the  world  had  come  to  depend  upon  it.  A 
break  took  place  in  a  cable  and  business  was  thrown 
out  of  gear.  In  desperation  they  sought  to  send  mes- 
sages which  they  found  reached  spasmodically  from 
one  broken  end  of  the  cable  to  the  other  and  made 
a  continuous  current;  and  the  minds  of  the  scientists 
were  sent  exploring  in  a  new  world  waiting  to  be 
conquered.  The  same  thing  happened  to  Columbus 
in  the  discovery  of  America.  He  saw  a  plant  on  the 
shore  one  day  that  quickened  his  mind  and  sent  his 
heart  out  dreaming  of  some  farther  coast  which  he  felt 
must  be  across  the  water.  As  some  one  says  of  him, 
"The  instinct  of  another  continent  burned  in  his 
blood  " ;  the  world  he  lived  in  became  too  small  for 
his  enlarging  mind. 

That  is  what  Christ  does  for  us  with  re2:ard  to 
immortality.  The  instinct  is  in  our  blood  and  Christ 
awakens  it.  We  were  made  for  a  higher  sphere 
than  this  death-girt  island  we  call  earth.  Christ 
awakens  the  dormant  instinct  for  the  infinite.  How 
does  He  do  it?  For  one  thing  He  quickens  our 
sense  of  the  value  of  our  own  personality.  When 
Christ  comes  in,  we  begin  to  count  for  something. 
We  begin  to  count  "one."  We  become  a  soul,  a  self, 
with  a  value  which  is  infinite.  It  becomes  unthink- 
able that  we  should  die,  should  perish,  should  pass 


90  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

down  into  the  dust  of  decay  and  extinction.  He 
awakens  the  same  instinct  by  increasing  the  value 
of  the  great  things  of  life — our  love,  for  instance,  to 
one  another.  He  enriches  the  vital  human  affections 
which  are  the  very  salt  of  life.  The  man  who  loves 
Christ  will  love  his  children  with  a  finer  tenderness, 
and  that  deepened  love  demands  immortality. 

If  I  were  drowned  in  the  deepest  sea, 

Mother  o'  mine, 
I  know  whose  love  would  come  down  to  me. 

Mother  o'  mine,  o'  mine. 

A  love  like  that  demands  a  sphere  beyond  the 
limits  of  this  narrow  world.  With  such  a  passion, 
the  soul  stands  by  the  barrier  of  death  and 
"cries  like  a  Captain  for  eternity."  And  Christ 
awakens  the  instinct  of  immortality  by  setting  us 
tasks  which  we  cannot  half  see  finished,  which,  in 
fact,  with  only  one  life  before  us,  it  seems  hardly 
worth  beginning.  Cecil  Rhodes  was  no  orthodox 
believer,  but  life  had  touched  his  soul  with  the  glory 
of  a  great  task,  and  his  last  words  were  these,  "  So 
little  done,  so  much  to  do."  That  is  the  protest 
which  Christ  awakens  in  us.  When  He  comes  into 
a  man's  life,  however  dull  and  dispirited,  the  first 
thing  that  happens  to  that  man  is  that  he  becomes 
aware  of  a  motive  for  living  which  earth  itself  cannot 
supply.  All  that,  was  what  happened  in  the  case  of 
the  disciples.  They  had  thought  very  little  of  the 
after-life  till  Jesus  came.  Bit  by  bit  as  His  task  and 
His  friendship  possessed  their  souls,  the  need  awakened 
in  them,  till  their  last  great  craving  when  He  was 
on  the  point  of  leaving  them,  was  the  demand  for  a 
future.  It  was  this  hunger,  Christ  saw  leaping  up  in 
their  hearts  and  looking  out  of  their  troubled  eyes. 


I 


THE  OVERCOMING  OF  DEATH  91 

which  made  Him  say,  "Let  not  your  heart  be 
troubled  ;  in  My  Father's  house  are  many  mansions." 
By  awakening  the  instinct  in  us,  Christ  brings  im- 
mortality to  light. 

The   second    thing   which    needs    to    be   done   in 
making  a  great  discovery,  is   to  open  the   mind  to 
believe  in  it.     A  man  will  not  seek  long  for  anything 
if  his  mind  can  make  no  room  for  it.     Some  time 
ago  a  well-known  scientist  came  into  full  possession 
of  the  Christian  faith.      For   years   he    had    longed 
to  be  a  Christian.     Jesus  Christ  drew  his  heart  like 
a  magnet ;   his    soul   demanded    faith,  his    life  cried 
out  for  it,  but  he  could  find  no  room  in  his  mind  for 
miraculous  Christianity.    He  describes  himself  as  like 
a  man  standing  on  the  brink  of  a  river  looking  for  a 
way  to  cross  and  watching  for  some  thought  which 
might  become  a  bridge.     When   the  outlook   came, 
which  removed  the  difficulty  in  his  mind,  he  crossed 
over  in  gladness  to  give  himself  to  Christ.     The  same 
thing   holds  with  regard    to  immortality — the  mind 
must  be  open  to  take  it  in.     Here  Christ  comes  to 
our  aid  by  the  fact  of  the  resurrection.     Doubts  have 
been  cast  upon  the  story  by  many  people  in  the  last 
1900   years,  but   the  fact   has  persisted — and  why? 
We  may  dispute  the  empty  grave  and  certain  details 
in  the  story ;  one  thing  we  cannot  dispute — the  fact 
that  the  disciples  were  changed  by  something  which 
was  big  enough  to  make  them  utterly  different  men. 
Think  of  their  change  of  mood  from  grief  to  gladness, 
from  utter   gloom  and  depression  to  sheer  triumph 
and  victory.     Is  there  any  explanation,  of  this  change 
which  can  be  found  in  the  narrow  compass  of  mental 
science?      Here   is    a    fact  which    meets    the    mind, 
"  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears  to  rap  and  knock 


92  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

and    enter  on    the   soul,"   before  which    the   bi;;^gest 
sceptic  may  begin  to  doubt  his  unbeHef.     Or  is  there 
any  other  explanation  of  the  moral  change?     Their 
uhole  personalities    had  suffered  a  reaction.     Some 
of  them  were   cowards  before.     One  of  them  could 
not  face  the  laughter  of  a  group  of  servant  girls  who 
taunted  him  with  being  a  follower  of  Christ,  and  he 
went  out  to  face  wounds  and  death  and  the  ridicule 
of  the  whole  world.     How  do   you    explain  it,  if  it 
were  not  due  to  a  presence  whom  they  could  know 
and    feel   more  real  than   all   the  threatening  world 
around    them.     What    spiritual    power   was    behind 
their  new-made  lives  ?     The  explanation  is  that  life 
was  brought  to  light,  and  death  was   shattered.     Il 
there  is  one  who  finds  it  difficult  to  believe  in  the 
future  life  because  of  his  view  of  the  universe,  here 
is  a  plain  fact  challenging  the  mind.     What  are  we 
going  to  hiake  of  it?     If  our  scheme  of  things  is  one 
that  will  not  hold  Jesus — risen  and  living — it  is  time 
our  mental  world  were  smashed  in  pieces  and  rebuilt. 
There  is  only  one  outlook    on   the  world   which   is 
valid   to-day,  or  worthy   of  a   thinking  man   facing 
the  facts  of  life.     This  little  world  of  physical  force 
is  but  a  fragment  of  a  great  spiritual  universe  where 
Christ  is  Lord,  and  death  a  door  that  leads  to  a  larger 
room   in   the   great    mansion    of  life.     We   need  to 
revise   our   ideas   and    find    an    outlook    that   is   big 
enough  to  take  in  the  risen   Jesus.     The   more  we 
look  at  Him,  the  closer  we  come  to  Him,  the  m.ore 
He  will  make  a  place  for  Himself  which  is  all  His 
own.     By    the    fact    of    His   rising,    Christ    brings 
immortality  to  light. 

But    lastly,   there   is   the    possession   of  the   final 
secret,  the   assurance   of  the   man    who   is   brought 


THE  OVERCOMING  OF  DExVTH  93 

to  say,  "  I  know."  How  does  Christ  make  us  sure 
of  immortality?  It  is  a  spiritual  secret.  The  final 
assurance  of  immortality  is  not  an  argument  of  the 
mind ;  it  is  a  conviction  of  the  heart — the  experience 
of  a  life  already  victorious  over  the  tyranny  of  earth. 
It  is  reached  through  faith  by  those  who  will  trust 
Christ  and  let  that  experience  bring  its  own  con- 
clusions. The  scientist  has  to  make  experiments 
before  he  can  be  sure  of  his  discovery,  and  not  only 
once  but  again  and  again,  till  bit  by  bit  the  results 
pile  up  and  the  thing  can  be  put  upon  the  market. 
Even  he  has  to  use  faith,  to  take  a  certain  risk  of 
wasting  his  time  and  his  money.  There  is  no  other 
way  to  final  certainty  of  any  great  truth  but  the  way 
of  practical  experiment.  The  man  who  takes  no 
risks  discovers  no  certainties.  The  assurance  of 
immortality  is  a  product  of  experience  of  the  love 
of  God  which  comes  through  trusting  Christ ;  and 
trusting  that  love  means  committing  our  life  to  its 
promises  and  its  challenges  and  its  rebukes.  What 
happens  then?  Our  souls  break  into  life  as  a  tree 
into  leaf  in  every  bough  with  the  coming  of  the 
spring  sunlight.  And  the  life  which  is  eternal  is 
born  in  our  souls. 

This  life  brings  its  own  assurance.  It  stirs  the 
conviction  that  in  the  love  of  God  revealed  in  Jesus 
we  are  in  contact  with  a  love  and  care  which  is 
eternal.  That  is  the  only  final  guarantee.  Im- 
mortality is  a  spiritual  fact,  and  you  cannot  prove 
a  spiritual  fact  except  by  spiritual  perceptions.  The 
real  assurance  of  the  future  life  lies  not  in  deeper 
explorations  of  psychic  marvels,  impressive  though 
these  may  be.  It  lies  in  exploring  in  daily  fellowship 
with  Jesus  the  marvel  of  the  love  of  God.     No  man 


94  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

can  interpret  for  another  in  what  ways  this  assurance 
will  come  to  him.  There  are  certain  well-defined 
ways — the  sense  of  peace,  the  assurance  of  forgive- 
ness, bubbling  up  sometimes  like  a  fountain,  in  tears 
of  thankfulness.  Varied  experiences  of  God  come 
through  the  changing  weather  of  life.  We  know  the 
love  of  God  in  our  own  deep  souls  as  we  know 
the  sun  in  the  sky — sometimes  by  the  light  and 
sometimes  by  the  shadow.  But  the  full  secret  is 
indescribable  in  words.  Can  any  lover  tell  a  stranger 
by  what  subtle  tokens  he  interprets  the  signs  of 
answered  love?  If  he  could,  they  might  mean 
nothing  to  a  stranger.  But  the  essence  of  the 
matter  is  that  in  this  love  which  we  know,  we  find 
our  assurance  of  immortality.  It  has  a  value,  a 
quality  like  great  music  or  great  art,  to  which  we 
give  the  name  "  eternal."  Fellowship  with  God  has 
in  its  very  heart,  the  hall-mark  of  an  imperishable 
union.      ^ 

In  a  Sussex  novel  there  is  a  story  of  a  man  of 
sordid  life  who  had  been  seeking  God  and  at  last 
found  Him  in  the  glory  of  a  summer  morning  when 
he  had  come  to  the  end  of  himself  and  had  gone  out 
to  make  an  end.  God  rose  that  morning  in  the 
beauty  of  those  flowers  and  grasses  as  Christ  rose 
from  the  dead,  and  broke  into  his  soul  with  the 
unutterable  sense  of  a  living  personal  love.  Not  long 
after,  he  lay  dying  as  the  result  of  an  accident,  but 
there  was  hardly  any  tinge  of  sadness  in  his  outlook. 
"  It  seems  to  me,"  he  said,  "  that  when  I  go  to  God, 
I  am  going  into  the  very  middle  of  all  that's  alive ; 
seems  to  me  that  when  I  go  to  God,  I  can  never 
lose  the  month  of  May."  That  is  the  final  assurance 
— the   knowledge  of  a  love  which  is  the  secret  of 


THE  OVERCOMING  OF  DEATH  95 

everything  that  makes  life  precious,  and  it  comes  to 
us  focussed  in  Jesus  Christ. 

There  is  no  other  way  of  certainty  except  what 
comes  through  faith.  We  "  could  wish  for  more  "  like 
Dr.  Johnson.  But  no  more  comes,  except  what  faith 
brings.  If  more  were  given  us,  we  would  lose  that 
struggle  of  faith  which  keeps  us  alive.  All  living 
faith  is  something  for  which  we  have  to  do  battle 
with  what  we  call  the  facts  of  life.  And  the  certainty 
of  immortality  is  one  we  have  to  live  for  and  may 
have  to  fight  for.  It  is  a  living  certainty  which  grows 
bit  by  bit  and  changes  its  face  and  sometimes  dies, 
only  to  be  reborn  if  we  keep  on  fighting  for  it, 
trusting  it ;  for  "  faith,"  says  Chesterton,  "  is  the  per- 
petually defeated  thing  that  survives  all  its  con- 
querors." It  is  a  "moral  certainty"  in  the  full  sense 
of  the  term — a  certainty  we  cannot  have,  except  on 
the  terms  of  a  moral  surrender  to  Jesus  Christ  and 
a  life  of  obedience  and  trust. 

Is  there  one  who  has  lost  it?  Begin  again  with 
the  life  of  trust  in  Christ,  launching  out  on  the  ocean 
of  life  in  that  mighty  fellowship.  As  you  sail  through 
the  mists  into  the  far  horizons,  you  will  begin  to 
descry  the  land  that  is  very  far  off.  Bit  by  bit  the 
spiritual  world  will  become  your  world,  taking  you 
up  into  itself,  till  at  last  death  will  be  only  the 
"  Golden  Gate  "  which  opens  upon  everything — upon 
life  and  love  and  God. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SPIRIT  IN  ACTION 

"I  beseech  thee  for  my  son  Onesimus." — Philemon  lo. 

This   little   letter   of  Paul  to  Philemon  lies  hidden 

away  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the  New  Testament.     It  is 

almost  obscured  from  sight  among  the  longer  letters, 

but  the  New  Testament  would  have  been   as   poor 

without  it,  as  the  woods  without  violets.      It  tells  in 

its  own  artless  way  and  in  the  story  which  lies  behind 

it,  how  Christ  comes  into  a  man's  life,  not  merely  to 

answer  his  problems  and  settle  his  doubts — all  that  is 

important.     But  it  also  tells  this,   which    is   just  as 

important,  how  Christianity  sweetens   the   relations 

between  man  and  man,  how  Christ  steps  in  to  dissolve 

the  bitterness,  to  soften  the  misunderstandings,  to  put 

us  right  with  one  another  in  the  little  things  in  which 

we   often    go  wrong,    and   finally  to  set   our  varied 

relationships  on  such  a  footing  that  our  little  circle 

of  friends   or   associates    shall   become  part  of  that 

blessed  society  of  souls  which  is  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

We  must  begin  with  the  story.     We  only  gather  it 

in  outline,  but  it  is  as  romantic  as  any  tale  of  fiction 

and  far  more  beautiful  than  most,  and  it  has  the  merit 

of  being   true.     There   are    no   such  wonderful   and 

beautiful  things  in  all  the  world  as  those  that  happen 

to  men  and  women  when  they  come  into  touch  with 

Christ     Here,  then,  is  the   story.     Philemon  was  a 

rich  and  prosperous  citizen  of  Colossse,  and  he  dwelt 

96 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SPIRIT  L\  ACTION     97 

there  with  Aphia  his  wife  and  Archippus  their  son. 
When  Paul  was  preaching  in  that  district,  Philemon 
was  converted,  and  his  wife  and  son  as  well.     There- 
after he  became,  like  many  of  Paul's  converts,  a  firm 
friend  of  the  apostle :  he  was  moreover  a  leader  in  the 
little  church.     Like  every  well-to-do  citizen,  Philemon 
kept  slaves.     They  did  not  know  any  better  till  the 
new  leaven   of  Christianity  began    to  work  in  their 
lives  and  they  found  that  these  things  could  not  go 
on.     Onesimus  may  have  been  a  good  slave  or  a  bad 
one.     The   story    suggests    that    he   had    his    faults. 
How  could  anyone  make   a    man  a  slave  and  then 
expect  from  him  anything  else  but  slave  morality? 
A  slave  who  was  also  a  saint  would  be  a  miracle,  and 
nothing  shows  the  marvel  of  the  grace  of  God  more 
than  the  fact  that  it  produced  that  kind  of  miracle. 
One  day  Onesimus  ran  away  from  his  master,  taking 
with  him  various  things  of  value.     Driven  no  doubt 
by  a  guilty  conscience,  and  the  better  to  hide  him- 
self, he  made  for  Rome,  which  was  like  many  great 
modern  cities — the  sink  into  which  the  worst  char- 
acters in  the  land  gather,  in  order  to  be  lost  in  the 
stream.     Then   a   strange  thing  happened.     In  the 
very  place  where  he  had  fled  to  hide  himself,  Onesimus 
was  discovered,  not  by  Philemon  or  the  trackers  of 
runaway   slaves,   but   by   a    greater   pursuer.      The 
Divine  love  followed  Onesimus.     Conscience  pursued 
him.     The  Spirit  of  God  sought  him  out.     How  it 
happened  we  do  not  know.     Perhaps  his  past  suddenly 
flashed  upon  him  in  a  face  from  the  crowd,  as  in  the 
case  of  Tito  in  George  Eliot's  Romola.     Tito  had  run 
away  from  his  duty,  which  was  to  free  his  benefactor 
from    slavery,  and  was   climbing   up   the    ladder   of 
fashion  and  position  by  means  of  the  money  which 
7 


98  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

had  been  entrusted  to  him  for  this  sacred  duty.  He 
plunged  into  the  stream  of  Hfe  at  Florence  imagining 
he  was  safe  from  pursuit,  except  in  the  haunting 
voice  of  conscience  which  in  time  he  hoped  to  stifle. 
But  just  when  he  was  getting  along  famously  and  all 
was  merry  as  a  marriage  bell,  he  caught  a  glimpse  of 
a  face  in  the  crowd  one  day  and  eyes  looked  into  his 
for  a  moment  that  seemed  to  scorch  his  very  soul. 
It  was  his  benefactor,  escaped  and  mad  for  revenge, 
burning  with  a  remorseless  scorn  and  hatred.  There 
is  no  place  in  all  this  world  big  enough  to  hide  a  man 
from  the  pursuit  of  conscience  and  the  harrying  of 
guilt.  For  whether  it  come  in  vengeance  or  in  shame 
or  in  sorrow,  the  thing  that  haunts  and  tracks  us  down 
is  the  love  of  God  seeking  to  win  us,  to  find  us,  to 
hold  us  with  the  passion  which  never  lets  men  go. 

Still  with  unhurrying  chase 

And  unperturbed  pace, 

Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 

Came  on  the  following  feet  and  a  voice  above  their  beat, 

Nought  shelters  thee  who  wilt  not  shelter  Me. 

So  it  is  ever  in  life.  There  is  no  use  in  seeking  to 
get  away  from  God,  for  the  very  things  we  do  to  get 
away  from  Him,  are  playing  their  part  in  bringing  us 
back  to  Him.  The  very  roads  by  which  we  flee,  the 
sorrowful  road,  the  lonely  way,  the  primrose  path, 
lead  to  the  places  where  He  will  meet  us  by  and  by. 
We  do  not  know  what  it  was  that  brought  Onesimus 
under  the  influence  of  Paul  in  his  prison.  A  chance 
meeting  with  one,  perhaps,  who  had  been  with  Paul 
in  Colossae  and  was  with  him  now  in  Rome,  and 
whose  very  face,  as  Onesimus  met  him  on  the  street, 
let  loose  a  flood  of  recollection  and  broke  him  down, 
till  he  allowed  himself  to  be  led  to  Paul  and  there 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SPIRIT  IN  ACTION     99 

found  Christ.  But  we  do  know  that  this  man,  fleeing 
from  shame  and  conscience  and  God,  ran  straight 
into  God's  arms. 

It  is  such  a  fine  story  that  one  would  like  to  linger 
over  it,  and  let  one's  imagination  play  with  it,  and 
brood  for  a  little  longer  on  the  marvellous  inescapable 
love.  But  we  are  to  think  of  one  or  two  things  in 
the  letter,  and  the  story  just  brings  us  to  the  point 
where  we  can  understand  these. 

Onesimus  was  not  very  long  a  Christian  before  he 
found  himself  faced  with  a  strait  gate  and  a  narrow 
way.  That  is  a  common  experience,  and  Christ  led 
us  to  expect  it — the  strait  gate  and  the  narrow 
way,  and  over  them  the  shadow  of  the  Cross.  For 
Christ  creates  just  as  many  difficulties  as  He  removes. 
He  sets  just  as  many  problems  as  He  solves  ;  though 
the  difficulties  Christ  brings  by  His  demands  upon 
us,  are  not  the  sordid,  miserable  difficulties  that  we 
make  for  ourselves  in  the  entanglements  of  selfish- 
ness. They  are  clean  difficulties — the  steps  of  the 
ascent  by  which  we  climb  to  God  and  by  which  God 
makes  it  possible  for  us  to  climb.  For  every  difficulty 
conquered  is  a  step  upward'^  every  strain  is  an  offer  of 
strength.  So  Onesimus  had  to  face  his  difficulty,  his 
narrow  way.  He  had  to  go  back  to  Philemon  and  put 
himself  at  his  disposal.  Slavery  was  wrong,  though 
Onesimus  did  not  know  it.  But  in  any  case  he  could 
not  make  a  right  by  doing  a  wrong.  He  had  to  go 
back  and  ask  forgiveness  for  the  theft,  and  put  himself 
in  the  hands  of  Philemon,  risking  the  hardship  he 
might  have  to  suffer  and  facing  the  sneers  and  the 
shame  of  the  little  community.  He  had  to  learn,  to 
put  it  in  another  way,  that  the  forgiveness  of  God 
does  not  mean  the  cancelling  of  consequehces.     The 


100  THE  VICTORY   OF  GOD 

forgiveness  of  God  does  not  cover  any  wrong.  We  must 
stand  up  to  the  situation  into  which  sin  has  brought  us, 
facing  it  with  the  help  of  God.  Where  it  is  possible 
for  us  to  make  amends,  it  is  our  business  to  do  it. 

Let  no  man  who  reads  this  letter  say  that  Chris- 
tianity does   not  hold  out  for  absolute  straightness 
of  dealing   between  man  and    man.     Onesimus   the 
slave,  crushed  and  downtrodden  it  may  be,  had  grace 
enough  to  know  that  he  could  never  look  Christ  in 
the  face  without  sorrow  till  he  could  look  his  brother 
man  in  the  face  without  shame.     That  truth  lies  at 
the    very    heart    of    Christianity.     Christ    came   to 
make  us  terribly  sensitive  in  our  dealings  with  our 
brother  man,  demanding  straightness,  honesty,  fair- 
ness.    The  fellowship  of  Christ  is  a  circle  which  is 
not  complete  till  it   includes   our  relationships  with 
others.     A   flaw  in  our  contacts  with  men  is  like  a 
fault  in   the  electric  circuit ;    the   current  is  broken 
through  which  our  own  souls  are  lit  by  God's  love. 
And  there  is  nothing  that  hides  the  face  of  God  from 
us  so  much  as  the  stupid  grudges  and  bitternesses 
that  we  feel  and  nurse  toward  others.     "If  then,"  said 
Christ,  "  thou  art  come  to  the  altar  to  offer  thy  gift, 
and  there  rememberest  that  thy  brother  hath  ought 
against  thee,  first  go  and  be  reconciled  to  thy  brother, 
and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift."     It  is  as  serious  as 
that !     There  is  no  peace  in   the  house  of  God,  no 
peace  in  God's  friendship  for  any  man,  till  there  is 
peace   between   him    and   his   brother   so   far  as  he 
can   put  wrong   right.     So   back   goes  Onesimus  to 
Philemon.     We  can  imagine  how,  when  the  decision 
was   taken    and    he   set    his  face  eastwards  towards 
Colossae,  there  came  into  his  soul    such   a  glory  of 
light  and  peace,  that  it  must  have  seemed  as  if  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SPHITT  LN  ACTION      loi 

dawn  had  risen  upon  a  night  of  darkness  and  troubled 
dreams. 

But  it  was  going  to  be  just  as  hard  for  Philemon ; 
and  that  is  the  meaning  of  the  letter.  He  too  had  to 
face  his  strait  gate  and  his  narrow  way.  For  Christ 
was  going  to  demand  this  of  him  in  the  name  of  his 
faith,  that  he  should  forego  all  the  penalties  which  a 
master  exacted  of  a  runaway  slave  and  put  him  back 
in  his  old  place  and  forgive  the  debt.  Now  we  are 
not  honest  with  ourselves  if  we  do  not  realize  that 
that  was  to  be  a  very  hard  thing  for  Philemon.  He 
was  not  only  to  deny  the  human  passion  for  revenge, 
for  what  men  often  call,  or  miscall,  justice.  The 
whole  social  order  would  be  up  against  him.  They 
would  tell  him  it  was  a  direct  encouragement  to 
rebellion  among  the  slaves.  They  would  call  him 
sentimental  and  foolish.  And  further,  there  would  be 
the  humbling  to  his  own  pride.  For  notice  what  Paul 
is  asking  of  him  in  the  name  of  Christ.  He  is  asking 
of  him  this  terribly  hard  thing,  not  only  to  wipe  off 
the  past  and  let  the  debt  go,  but  to  receive  this  man 
not  as  a  slave,  not  even  as  a  reformed  slave,  but  as  a 
brother  beloved,  a  kinsman  in  Christ,  a  man  with  an 
equal  place  and  right  in  the  love  of  God.  That  is 
unspeakably  difficult  —  it  looks  like  folly.  But  it 
had  to  be  done.  It  was  the  Christian  way,  and  one 
of  the  Bible  names  for  a  Christian  is  "a  fool  for 
Christ's  sake."  Christ  was  calling  him  to  bridge  over 
that  chasm  of  which  Coleridge  speaks,  that  wound 
which  goes  so  deep  that  nothing  can  heal  it,  and  of 
which  "  neither  heat,  nor  frost,  nor  thunder,"  nor  any 
of  nature's  processes  can  take  away  the  hurt  and 
scar.  Some  one  remarks  that  a  man  never  realizes 
what  it  is  to  be  really  Christian  till  he  has  stood  before 


102  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

one  whom  he  has  wronged  and  asked  forgiveness  for 
his  sin.  That  is  the  humbling  which,  in  the  eyes  of 
Christ,  is  exaltation.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  a  man 
never  realizes  what  it  means  to  be  really  Christian, 
really  forgiven,  till  he  has  stood  before  one  who  has 
greatly  wronged  him  and  held  out  his  hand.  For  at 
that  moment  he  knows  a  pain  in  hands  and  head  and 
heart  such  as  came  upon  One  who  hung  upon  a 
Cross.  It  is  a  simple  lesson,  the  duty  of  forgiveness, 
the  forgiveness  that  is  willing  to  look  upon  the  man 
who  has  wronged  you,  if  he  repent,  as  your  redeemed 
brother,  your  kinsman  in  Christ,  and  to  trust  him 
again  even  at  the  risk  of  his  deceiving  you,  yet  it  is 
the  only  way  to  a  high  understanding  and  an 
abundant  entrance  into  the  forgiving  love  of  Christ. 
We  never  know  the  sweets  of  forgiveness  till  we 
have  learned  by  our  own  pain  what  it  means  to  be 
angry  with  a  man  and  suspicious  of  him,  and  yet 
forgive  him  and  trust  him  a  second  time.  We 
never  get  even  h  little  glimpse  into  what  it  cost 
Christ  to  forgive  us,  until  we  come  to  know 
something  of  what  it  costs  us  to  forgive  others. 
This  free  forgiveness  Christ  demanded  of  Philemon, 
and  this,  I  am  persuaded,  is  what  He  is  demanding  of 
our  Christianity  to-day — facing  us  with  a  narrow  gate 
by  which  we  will  either  pass  into  a  larger  kingdom, 
or  stand  outside  drinking  our  own  bitter  cup  of 
revengeful  memories. 

We  do  not  know  whether  Philemon  rose  to  the 
occasion.  Tradition  tells  us  that  he  did.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  how  he  could  well  refuse  this  tender 
and  winsome  appeal  of  Paul.  For  Paul  does  not 
speak  in  the  tones  of  a  spiritual  overlord.  He  speaks 
with  persuasion.     There  is  just  a  gentle  hint  here  and 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SPIRIT  L\  ACTION      103 

there,  a  hint  of  the  Cross  and  of  what  the  Christian 
society  will  expect  of  Philemon,  just  enough  to 
suggest  the  beautiful  way,  and  yet  leave  him  the 
right  to  feel  that  he  has  done  this  thing  of  his  own 
free  will. 

We  can  be  certain  that  Philemon  did  take  Onesimus 
back.  And  the  letter  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  a  curious 
situation  which  was  very  common  in  these  early  days 
of  Christianity.  It  suggests  a  master  and  a  slave 
bound  to  each  other  by  the  most  cruel  and  unchristian 
of  ties  which  men  ever  forged  for  their  fellows — the 
chain  of  slavery — and  yet  regarding  each  other  not 
as  master  and  slave  only,  but  as  brothers  in  Christ,  a 
deeper  thing  than  even  blood  brotherhood,  the  deepest 
and  divinest  thing  in  heaven  and  earth.  That  curious 
situation  tells  us  one  or  two  things  about  Christianity 
which  I  want  to  put  in  a  word. 

For  one  thing,  it  tells  us  that  Christianity  brings 
the  best  out  of  all  the  relationships  of  life,  whatever 
they  may  be.  Their  new  relationship  as  Christian 
men  did  not  make  either  of  them,  and  was  not  meant 
to  make  either  of  them,  scornful  of  their  duties  as 
master  and  slave,  or  callous  to  their  responsibilities. 
Onesimus  would  be  the  best  slave  any  man  ever  had, 
true  and  devoted  and  obedient  and  respectful,  to  the 
last  ounce  that  was  in  him.  And  Philemon  would  be 
the  best  master  a  slave  ever  had,  tolerant,  kindly, 
considerate  to  the  very  last  degree.  When  Onesimus 
went  away,  Philemon  had  lost  an  indifferent  slave, 
whom,  in  fact,  he  was  better  without.  When  he  came 
back  after  having  passed  into  the  hands  of  Christ,  he 
was  a  slave  to  whom  duty  was  music,  whose  work  was 
lit  witli  love.  Christ  enriches  the  relationships  of  life. 
A  servant  may  have  a  bad  master,  but  Christianity 


104  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

never  gives  him  an  excuse  for  being  a  bad  servant. 
A  man  may  have  a  bad  servant,  but  no  slackness  or 
any  other  thing  will  excuse  him  for  being  a  bad 
master.  The  conditions  of  life  may  not  be  good,  and 
the  relations  in  which  we  stand  to  one  another  may 
not  be  ideal,  but  Christianity,  when  it  is  real,  will 
make  them  as  good  as  they  can  be.  When  Christ 
comes  in,  the  whole  outlook  of  life  and  work  and 
service  is  lifted  above  the  narrow  horizons  of  our  own 
pleasure,  or  even  of  the  accepted  standards,  and 
becomes  centred  on  Christ.  A  Christian  man  ought 
to  be  the  best  master,  the  best  servant,  the  best  friend, 
the  best  lover — ^just  because  he  belongs  to  Christ. 

There  is  a  second  thing,  Christianity  overleaps 
the  mechanical  and  often  artificial  relationships  of  life. 
Here  were  Philemon  and  Onesimus,  master  and  slave, 
and  yet  deep  in  their  hearts,  all  that  was  forgotten. 
It  was  not  the  main  thing.  They  became  brothers, 
sons  of  God,  equal  in  God,  with  the  brand  of  the  slave 
and  the  dignity  of  the  master  alike  overcome  by  the 
lustre  which  came  to  them  both  from  the  shadow  of  the 
splendour  of  the  Cross.  When  they  were  nearest  to 
Christ,  when  they  knelt  at  prayer,  when  they  took  the 
sacrament,  that  common  feeling  and  faith  submerged 
the  barriers  till  they  forgot  them  altogether.  That  is 
the  next  highest  thing  Christ  does  with  our  social 
differences.  He  brings  in  a  love,  a  sympathy,  a 
respect,  a  kinship,  which  transcends  them  altogether. 
Paul  rose  to  it  in  its  fullest  range.  You  remember 
what  he  says  somewhere  about  women  speaking  in 
churches,  and  there  are  one  or  two  other  hints  that 
there  is  something  just  a  little  inferior  in  the  gentler 
sex.  But  he  gets  over  all  that.  There  are  relations 
in  which  the  differences  must  stand,  and  each  must 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SPIRIT  IN   ACTION      105 

be  its  best  and  develop  its  own  function,  the  glory  of 
manhood  and  womanhood.  But  in  Christ  there  is 
"neither  male  nor  female" — these  distinctions  go — 
''neither  male  nor  female,  neither  bond  nor  free, 
neither  Jew  nor  Greek,"  yes !  and  He  would  have 
gone  further  to-day,  neither  British  nor  German,  but 
all  are  one  before  God,  with  all  surface  differences 
gone — only  the  naked  souls  capable  of  pain  and  sin 
and  sorrow  and  redeeming  joy.  So  Christianity  leaps 
over  the  artificial  frontiers  of  life. 

But  there  is  a  third  thing.  It  is  not  in  the  story, 
but  it  sprang  out  of  a  situation  like  this.  When 
Christ  comes  into  any  human  relationships,  He  not 
only  makes  them  the  very  best  of  their  kind,  and 
gives  us  grace  to  disregard  all  barriers  which  would 
keep  us  from  being  our  best  to  each  other :  He  does 
more.  If  the  relationships  are  wrong,  He  changes 
them,  breaks  them  down  at  last,  as  a  stream 
which  is  rushing  full  and  strong,  breaks  down  the 
narrow  banks  and  makes  new  channels  of  its  own. 
This  is  what  happened  with  slavery.  What  was  it 
that  abolished  slavery?  It  was  Christianity.  There 
are  people  who  wonder  why  Paul  seems  to  take 
slavery  for  granted,  and  there  are  some  who  used 
to  argue  that  as  there  was  slavery  in  the  New 
Testament  there  will  always  be  slavery,  just  as  they 
argue  that  because  there  is  war  in  the  New  Testament 
there  will  always  be  war.  It  was  Christianity  that 
broke  down  slavery,  swept  it  out.  And  how  did  it 
do  it — by  means  of  a  situation  like  this  portrayed  or 
suggested  in  this  letter.  Fifty  years  ago  slavery  was 
abolished  in  America.  How  was  it  done?  It  was 
through  one  man  of  genius  carrying  into  his  politi- 
cal life   the   logic  of  this  principle  of   brotherhood, 


io6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

and  risking  everything  upon  it.  There  is  a  passage 
in  Mr.  Drinkwater's  fine  play,  Abraham  Lincoln — 
which  portrays  the  very  same  situation.  During  the 
Civil  War  an  old  negro  preacher,  Frederick  Douglas, 
pays  a  visit  to  Lincoln,  who  holds  out  his  hand  and 
bids  him  take  a  chair.  The  old  negro,  schooled  by 
habit,  refuses  to  sit  down.  "  But  I  am  black,"  he  says, 
"  and  you  are  white."  ''  No,  no,"  says  Lincoln,  "  we 
are  just  two  old  men  talking  together."  There  it  is, 
neither  black  nor  white,  but  just  two  old  men,  each 
with  a  burden  on  his  soul,  facing  the  common 
challenge  of  Jesus.  That  is  Christianity  in  action. 
When  a  master  and  slave  became  Christian  they 
became  brothers  ;  they  saw  each  other  in  Christ  against 
the  background  of  the  Cross — the  only  way  to  look 
at  a  man  if  you  want  to  see  the  very  truth  about  him. 
That  kind  of  relationship  went  on  for  a  while,  but 
after  a  bit  they  began  to  see  that  it  could  not  last. 
The  relation  of  master  and  slave  was  too  narrow  and 
gross  and  cruel  a  thing  to  hold  the  river  of  this 
Christian  love.  It  became  intolerable  to  look  at  a 
man  in  the  light  of  Christ  and  love  him  in  Christ  and 
at  the  same  moment  put  chains  on  him  and  make 
him  a  slave.  The  thing  could  not  stand,  and  it  broke 
— Christianity  broke  it  by  creating  and  inspiring  the 
right  spirit,  the  Christian  spirit,  and  the  Christian 
outlook,  in  master  and  slave  alike.  There  are  many 
things  in  our  relations  to-day  between  man  and  man 
and  class  and  class  which  are  wrong  and  unchristian. 
Even  as  they  are,  Christianity  can  sweeten  them. 
But  the  way  to  put  them  right  is  not  to  break  them 
down  from  without,  by  any  hammer  stroke  of  revolu- 
tion. There  never  was  revolution  yet,  which  did  not 
create  as  much  injustice  as  it  pretended  to  abolish. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SPIRIT  IN  ACTION      107 

The  way  out  of  it  all  is  to  bring  in  the  new  spirit. 
There  is  no  social  Utopia  of  our  dreams  which  can 
come  in  any  other  way.  It  is  the  living  breath  of 
Christian  goodwill  we  need  to-day.  Nothing  else 
will  heal  the  division  between  class  and  class,  between 
man  and  man,  between  nation  and  nation.  The 
lack  of  it  has  been  the  ruin  of  every  effort  that 
men  have  made  to  create  heaven  upon  earth.  Let 
in  the  new  spirit  and  it  will  make  the  new  channels. 

Perhaps  the  very  crisis  of  things  will  bring 
this  home  to  us  to-day,  just  as  it  took  the  violent 
separation  of  Onesimus  and  Philemon  to  bring  them 
together  as  brothers.  Surely,  a  deeper  reconciliation 
is  one  of  the  things  God  is  seeking  to  bring  out  of  the 
strifes  and  conflicts  of  these  days.  He  is  calling  to  us 
across  the  chasms  of  our  separation,  to  seek  in  Christ 
the  spirit  which  shall  bring  us  together  as  never 
before.  When  all  the  bitterness  is  over,  through  God*s 
hand  at  work  upon  us,  it  may  be  said  of  us  and  of 
those  from  whom  we  have  been  separated  by  mis- 
understanding, or  class  interests,  or  national  hostilities, 
"  perhaps  they  were  parted  from  us  for  a  season,  that 
we  might  receive  them  for  ever." 


AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH 

"Art  Thou  He  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look  for  another?"— 
Matt.  xi.  3. 

Many  great  voices  have  spoken  to  the  world  from 
a  prison.  The  explanation  is  simple.  The  world 
has  always  tried  to  silence  its  saints  and  its  prophets 
by  shutting  them  up.  But  because  truth  is  a  thing 
which  cahnot  be  silenced,  the  prison  has  become  a 
pulpit,  and  the  word  spoken  in  a  dungeon  has  re- 
verberated to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

It  was  not  a  very  stirring  word,  however,  which 
John  spoke  in  the  prison  of  Machaerus.  It  was  a 
question — a  doubt.  What  a  contrast  between  this 
question  and  his  striking  testimony  to  Jesus,  "  Behold 
the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world."  There,  he  had  bidden  the  world  look  at 
Christ  and  see  in  Him  the  central  Figure  of  the 
ages,  the  long  expected  Redeemer.  Now  his  mind 
seems  to  have  changed,  he  is  overcast  with  doubt. 
"  Art  Thou  He  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look  for 
another  ? " 

The  contrast  makes  a  problem  which  many  people 
have  found  very  difficult.  How  are  we  to  explain 
this  descent  from  the  sunny  height  to  the  dark 
valley  ?  Some  have  tried  to  say  that  the  first  great 
saying   is  unhistorical,  and  that  John  had  all  along 

been  in  doubt — which  is  the  line  of  least  resistarx^e. 

J  08 


AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH  109 

Others  have   tried  to  argue   that  John   himself  was 
not  in  doubt,  but  that  he  was  concerned  to  build  up 
the   faith  of  his    disciples  —  sending   them   to  Jesus 
to    find    their   own    evidence.      But    any    man    who 
knows   the   moods   of  the   mind   in    the   long   fight 
with    faith   will    understand.       It    was    a   temporary- 
eclipse.     Once,  in  a  time  of  clear  insight,  John  had 
seen    Christ   in    His   glory.      Then   the   clouds   had 
returned  again,  and  for  the  moment  there  was  dark- 
ness.    It  is  easy  to  see  how  it  may  have  happened. 
With  his  conscience  aflame  for  righteousness  he  had 
stood  up  to  Herod,  denouncing  his  private  life,  and 
had  been  flung  into  prison.     There,  in  the  darkness, 
a  reaction  had  come  upon  him ;  a  kind  of  paralysis 
of  faith  had  set  in.     Every  man  has  his  black  hour  ■ 
in  which  he  cannot  see  in  anything  the  face  of  God." 
Sometimes,  in  the  first  dumb  hour  of  a  great  sorrow 
the  light  of  faith  seems  to  be  quenched ;  the  spiritual 
voice  is  silenced ;  earth  with  its  walls  of  savage  and 
brutal  fact,  closes  in  about  us,  and   heaven  is    shut 
out.     We  have  to  wait  for  the  spirit   to  recover  its 
tone,  and  regain  its  wings,  and  begin  to  soar  above 
the  prison  house.     It  is  never  altogether  easy  to  keep 
faith.     In  Browning's  phrase,  doubt  is  always  more 
or  less  alive,  like  a  snake  wriggling  beneath  our  foot. 
There  is  always  the  last  grim  uncertainty  every  now 
and  again  flinging  its  challenge  in  our  teeth.     Some 
moments  we  are  quite  sure  and  never  a  doubt  finds 
tongue ;  but  ever  and  again  the  questions  start  and 
have  to  be  dealt  with.     It  is  a  conflict  all  through, 
though   a   conflict    through    which    faith    gains    and 
enlarges  and  keeps  alive.     If  the  facts  of  faith  were 
assured,  patent  to  the  world,  they  would  soon  become 
as   dull   in   their   interest   as   any   accepted    fact   of 


no  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

science  and  pass  into  the  limbo  of  the  commonplace. 
But  every  now  and  again  something  happens  to  stir 
the  waters,  and  faith  has  to  meet  a  new  threat  to  its 
security.  Science  cast  doubt,  for  instance,  upon  the 
first  chapters  of  Genesis  and  men  had  to  find  a 
larger  faith  to  meet  the  challenge.  The  war  breaks 
in  and  for  the  moment  faith  totters  and  seems  buried 
in  the  debris  of  a  shattered  world,  but  out  of  the 
ruins  it  rises  again,  richer,  deeper  than  ever,  and 
stands  more  surely  upon  its  feet.  The  experience 
of  faith  and  its  insight  into  the  heart  of  God  is 
the  one  thing  which  cannot  be  destroyed  in  all 
this  perishing  and  changing  world.  But  an  eclipse 
of  faith  such  as  may  come  to  us  all,  troubled  John. 
Who  can  doubt  but  that,  had  he  lived  long  enough, 
it  would  have  passed  ?  Meantime,  out  of  the  night 
that  covered  him,  he  sent  the  message,  big  with 
question,  to  Jesus,  "  Art  Thou  He  that  should  come, 
or  do  we  look  for  another  ?  " 

But  there  is  more  in  this  question  than  a  doubt. 
There  was  an  unquenchable  hope,  a  burning  heart  of 
aspiration.  "  Art  Thou  He  that  should  come  ? " 
If  John  had  stopped  there,  we  might  have  felt 
the  light  had  gone  completely.  But  he  adds  a 
word  that  rallies  us  like  a  trumpet  call,  "  Or  do 
we  look  for  another?"  John  is  still  a  seeker,  still 
out  on  the  search  for  God.  He  may  have  been 
baffled  and  disappointed  for  the  moment.  He  thought 
he  had  found  in  Christ  the  end  of  his  quest,  and 
now  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  been  wrong.  It  seemed 
as  if  Christ  did  not  fit  the  picture  he  had  carried 
in  his  heart  all  these  years,  waiting  for  the  face  to 
fill  it.  But  nevertheless  he  is  going  on.  There  is 
something    fine    in    this    word,    "  DO    we    look    for 


AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH  iii 

another?"  Must  the  seeker  take  up  the  long  trail 
again?  Must  the  watchman  get  back  to  his  tower 
and  begin  afresh  to  look  over  the  plains  for  the 
coming  of  God's  relief?  A  prison  is  a  poor 
look  out,  but  nevertheless  John  is  going  on.  The 
ship  may  be  sinking,  but  the  flag  is  still  flying. 
The  storm  may  rage  and  all  hope  seem  dead 
to  every  one  else,  but  his  lamp  is  still  in  the 
window. 

There  is  all  the  difference  between  John  and 
many  another  disappointed  seeker.  How  easily 
we  give  up  the  spiritual  quest !  Andrew  Carnegie 
had  pinned  all  his  hope  to  the  prospect  of  world 
peace.  It  was  the  great  dream  of  his  life.  And 
when  war  broke  out  and  shattered  his  dream  to 
pieces,  he  had  no  higher  hope  on  which  to  fall 
back.  It  was  the  end  of  everything,  "  Henceforth 
he  was  never  able  to  interest  himself  in  private 
affairs  again.  Many  times  he  made  the  attempt 
to  continue  writing  but  it  was  useless.  He  died  of 
a  broken  heart."  So  writes  his  widow.  He  himself 
wrote  in  his  diary  these  last  words.  "  As  I  read 
this  to-day,  what  a  change !  (1914).  The  world 
convulsed  with  war  as  never  before.  Men  slaying 
each  other  like  wild  beasts.  I  dare  not  relinquish  all 
hope.  In  recent  days  I  see  another  ruler  coming 
forward  upon  the  world  stage,  who  may  prove  to  be 
the  immortal  one."  But  had  he  lived,  would  not 
that  hope  have  been  shattered  too  ?  "  Trust  not  in 
man,"  says  the  Psalmist,  "  whose  breath  is  in  his 
nostrils." 

Some  people  lose  their  hope  because  they  have 
no  staying  power.  How  small  a  thing  will  turn 
some  men   from  the   quest   of  Christ !     "  Once  find 


112  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

the  truth,"  says  a  writer,  "and  then  objections  are 
nothing."  But  before  we  find  the  truth,  a  stone 
in  the  path  will  turn  the  weary  feet  aside.  Talk 
with  men  who  have  given  up  their  faith  and  you 
will  find  out  what  little  things  are  blocking  their 
vision.  They  never  had  much  faith.  Some  one  they 
trusted  betrayed  them,  and  they  flung  over  religion. 
They  were  cold-shouldered  in  a  church,  and  they 
will  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  Jesus  Christ. 
Think  of  John,  disappointed,  flung  into  a  dungeon, 
his  hope  in  Jesus  shattered,  yet  he  is  going  on. 
"  Art  Thou  He  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look  for 
another? " 

This  Messianic  hope  of  the  prophets  is  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  things  in  history.  Through  long 
centuries,  a  nation  dreamed  of  the  coming  of  a  great 
prince  of  God  who  should  bring  their  nation  out  of 
obscurity  and  exile  and  put  things  right.  This 
hope  rose  high  at  times,  and  at  times  burned  low. 
When  they  were  prosperous,  their  hope  often  faded 
like  a  smouldering  wick,  but  when  the  night  of  exile 
came  upon  them,  the  little  candle  of  their  hope  in 
God  flamed  out,  to  become  the  light  of  all  their  day. 
It  was  a  crude  hope  in  many  ways.  They  were 
waiting  for  a  prince,  a  judge,  a  conqueror.  But 
even  so,  the  hope  stood  for  a  great  thing.  It  was 
their  refusal  to  be  reconciled  to  a  universe  without 
God.  It  was  a  faith  that  God  would  never  have 
showed  them  so  many  mercies  and  taken  them  so 
far  on  the  highroad  of  a  great  destiny,  without  taking 
them  further.  It  was  their  assurance  that  life  would 
never  have  lured  them  on  with  so  many  promises 
and  then  left  them  desolate,  like  a  man  who  follows 
a  mirage.     It  was  their  faith  that  good  is  bound  to 


AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH  113 

triumph,  that  evil  and  unrighteousness  are  not  the 
last  word.  Somehow,  God  will  find  means  to  come 
to  the  rescue  of  the  tried  and  tempted.  Some  day, 
God  will  come  over  the  hills  to  relieve  His  be- 
leao-uered  garrison.  At  bottom  the  universe  is  not 
material  but  spiritual,  based  on  a  spiritual  order 
which  is  bound  to  rise  into  the  light  and  reveal  itself 
with  judgment  for  its  foes,  and  triumph  for  its  a.iies. 
What  a  brave  thing  is  this  hope  of  John  !  He  was 
sure  in  the  end,  God  was  not  going  to  disappoint 
him.  "Art  Thou  He  that  should  come,  or  do  we 
look  for  another  ?  " 

Now  a  hope  like  this  is  the  greatest  heritage  of 
life.  It  is  the  finest  thing  in  our  souls,  even  though 
we  have  not  yet  found  the  fulfilment  of  it.  It 
keeps  the  windows  open  that  the  dawn  may  shine 
in.  It  keeps  us  sensitive  to  the  approach  of  God. 
Even  if  we  have  nothing  else,  let  us  cherish  it. 
Even  if  v*'e  have  not  found  in  Christ  all  we  had 
expected,  let  us  never  give  up  hoping.  Despair  is 
the  deadly  thing.  Despair  of  God,  and  of  what  He 
is  seeking  to  give  us  and  to  make  us,  is  the  end  of 
everything. 

God  will  forgive  thee  all  but  thy  despair. 

Have  we  been  tried  beyond  measure,  with  one  thing 
failing  us  after  another,  till  there  seems  nothing  else 
to  live  for?  Never  let  us  give  up  hope.  Have  we 
been  tempted,  and  fallen  again  and  again,  till  we  feel 
there  can  be  little  reality  in  religion  ?  Never  let  us 
give  up  hope ;  we  have  not  found  the  key,  that  is  all ; 
we  have  not  seen  Jesus.  Have  we  been  misty  about 
religion,  perplexed,  finding  no  sense  of  reality  in  all 
the  experience  of  which  others  speak?  Something 
8 


114  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

is  there,  we  feel,  but  it  is  not  for  us,  and  we  are 
beginning  to  settle  down  to  things  as  they  are,  and 
to  a  life  without  the  friendship  of  God.  No  !  Never 
give  up  the  quest.  Never  let  doubt  harden  into 
despair.  Some  day  God  will  lead  us  into  the  great 
secret  if  we  keep  the  mind  alert  and  watchful  for  His 
coming. 

No  cloud  across  the  sky  but  passes  at  the  last, 
And  gives  us  back  the  face  of  God  once  more. 

Now,  of  course,  if  John  had  lived  long  enough, 
he  would  have  come  to  realize  that  his  great  hope 
was  really  fulfilled  in  Christ.  We  cannot  imagine 
John  who  had  hailed  Christ,  with  that  wonderful 
insight,  as  the  "  Lamb  of  God,"  drifting  into  a  back- 
water while  the  stream  of  God's  grace  ran  by.  We 
cannot  imagine  him  holding  on  for  ever  to  the  form 
of  his  hope  so  that  he  missed  the  substance.  For 
that  is  what  the  men  of  his  time  were  doing.  There 
are  various  reasons  why  people  become  disappointed 
in  Christ  and  fail  to  find  in  Him  the  answer  to  their 
spiritual  hunger.  One  of  them  is  that  they  are  misled 
by  wrong  views  of  Christ,  by  conventional  pictures, 
by  misunderstandings  of  His  real  character.  They 
will  not  go  and  discover  Him  for  themselves.  Jesus 
Christ  must  be  a  man's  own  discovery,  as  he  searches 
the  gospel  with  the  eyes  of  his  own  need.  God  meets 
men  on  the  plane  of  their  own  individual  need,  not 
through  some  need  which  is  not  theirs.  One  of  the 
secrets  of  religious  unreality  lies  just  here,  does  it 
not  ?  We  try  to  force  ourselves  into  the  position  of 
others,  and  seek  for  experiences  which  can  never  be 
ours  till  life  brings  us  where  they  have  been  ;  and 
one  day,  when  we  are  frank  with  our  own  souls  we 
find  ourselves  out   in  a  game  of  make-believe.     No 


AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH  115 

man  has  a  faith  at  all  which  is  not  a  faith  of  his  own. 
"  Christ  comes  to  each  man,"  says  George  MacDonald, 
"  down  his  own  secret  stair." 

When  I  am  most  perplexed  it  may  be  there 

Thou  mak'st  a  secret  chamber,  holy,  dim. 

Where  Thou  wilt  come  to  hear  my  deepest  prayer. 

We  may  not  see  in  Him  what  others  see,  but  if  we 
look  closely,  we  will  find  in  Him  the  real  fulfilment 
of  the  deepest  hopes  and  aspirations  of  our  souls,  as 
life  awakens  them  day  by  day  with  its  challenge,  and 
its  longing,  and  its  rebuffs.  There  is  no  need  to  look 
for  another.     All  of  God  is  there  for  us  in  Jesus. 

There  is  another  reason  which  brings  disappoint- 
ment with  Christ  The  fact  that  John  was  in  prison 
gives  us  a  glimpse  of  it.  It  is  a  misunderstanding 
of  what  Christ  came  to  do,  and  how  He  works.  John 
had  been  brought  up  on  the  great  advent  hope,  and 
the  advent  hope  was  material,  not  spiritual.  It  was 
the  expectation  of  a  God  who  would  come  in  judg- 
ment, smiting  evil,  breaking  to  pieces  the  oppressor, 
and  setting  the  humble  and  obedient  in  high  places. 
But  Christ  had  come,  and  here  was  John,  His  herald 
— flung  into  a  prison  by  the  decree  of  a  licentious 
king — and  nothing  happened  !  The  tyrant  world 
rolled  on  its  way  unrebuked.  Rome,  with  her 
legions,  held  Palestine,  "God's  own  country,"  in  a 
massive  grip  all  the  more  galling  because  it  was 
benevolent.  The  Messiah  went  on  teaching  and 
preaching,  and  working  cures  on  sick  bodies.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  with  so  crude  a  view  of  the  advent 
hope,  John  should  ask,  "Art  Thou  He  that  should 
come"? 

How  many  people  are  missing  Christ  to-day, 
because   of    crude   views   of    what    Christ   will   do! 


ii6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

They  see  the  world  going  on  its  own  old  way.     Evil 
seems  to  flourish ;  wrong  and  selfishness  seem  to  pay. 
Christianity  appears  to  work  neither  very  quickly  nor 
very  powerfully.     And  we  say  to  Christ,  "  Art  Thou 
He  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look  for  another  ?  " 
It  is  a  wrong  view  of  Christianity  which   is  at  the 
root   of  all  this  disappointment.     For  Christ  comes 
in  love,  to  win  the  world  through  love,  because  there 
is  no  other  way  of  winning  it.     Not  even  God  can 
rush  a  man,  or  drive  a  man  into  the  Kingdom.     No 
man  is  in  the  Kingdom  who  has  not  seen  for  himself 
the  love  of  God  in  Christ  and  made  A  free  response 
to  it.     As  for  the  distressed  and  the  burdened,  Christ 
did  not  come  in  the  first  place  to  5ft  their  burdens 
from  without.     He  came  to  bring  the  new  spirit  in 
which  burdens  would  become  bearable,  a  new  attitude 
to  life  which  would  bring  a  constant  victory.     Not  to 
take  John  out  of  prison,  but  to  awaken  the  spirit  of 
faith  and  courage  by  which  the  prison  would  become 
something  else — a  church,  as  it  was  for  many  of  the 
early   Christians;    a   pulpit,  as    it   was   for    Paul;   a 
picture  gallery,  as  it  was  for  Bunyan  ;  the  vestibule 
of  heaven,   as   it   was  for   John   the   apostle.     Such 
is  the  victorious  power  of  the  love  of  God,  the  doors 
of  the  prisons  have  been  opened,  and  the  prisoners' 
bands   been   loosed.     It    is   through   that  victory  of 
the   spirit   that   tyranny   has    been    destroyed.     For 
tyrants  have  learned  that  it  is  no  use  putting  men 
like  Paul  or  Bunyan  into  prison.     They  escape  every 
time   by   turning    the   prison    into    something   else. 
Then  a  thing  is  seen  these  tyrants  never  saw  before, 
and    they    begin    to   ask   themselves   whether   these 
are  indeed    the    kind   of  men  who  ought   to   be    in 
prison.     So  the  spirit  of  the  Kingdom  has  been  the 


AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH  117 

most  shattering  and  revolutionary  force  in  history. 
That  spirit  Christ  revealed,  and  led  men  into  its 
secret.  It  is  not  by  any  stroke  of  miracle  or  super- 
natural force  He  saves  us.  It  is  not  by  lifting  our 
troubles  ;  it  is  by  saving  us  in  our  troubles  from 
despair,  from  defeat,  from  bitterness,  from  the  mind 
that  looks  on  difficulties  as  foes.  There  is  no  other 
way  of  saving  us  than  by  saving  us  in  our  world. 
It  is  by  that  victory  of  the  spirit  that  the  world  itself 
comes  to  be  redeemed. 

But  Christ  is  disappointing  to  many  people  be- 
cause they  are  not  finding  in  Him  all  He  can  give. 
They  are  not  entering  to  the  full  into  the  Christian 
experience.  It  is  startling  to  read  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  ponder  the  words  of  Christ :  "  The 
Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand " ;  "  The  Kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you."  What  did  He  mean  ?  Did  He 
not  mean  that  the  power  of  God  is  here  at  our  very 
hand  for  the  conquest  of  evil  and  sin  and  the 
changing  of  the  world,  if  only  we  have  faith  enough 
to  use  it,  if  only  we  would  utterly  trust  Christ  as  He 
trusted  God.  The  belief  in  the  second  advent  of 
Christ  which  many  people  hold,  the  belief  that  Christ 
is  at  hand  and  that  He  is  returning  to  the  earth 
in  the  near  future,  misses  this  point.  It  is  a  great 
thing  to  have  such  a  hope,  if  we  do  not  become 
tied  to  the  form  of  it.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  keep 
the  soul  awake  to  the  fact  that  God  will  not  leave 
us  to  despair,  or  to  the  mercy  of  events,  or  the  sport 
of  evil.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  believe  that  this  world 
is  God's  and  that  eventually  He  is  coming  to  reign 
in  it.  But  the  form  of  this  advent  hope  may  be 
cheating  some  of  us  out  of  the  substance,  which  is 
the  immediacy  of  God  in  Christ  to   every  need,  to 


ii8  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

the  overcoming  of  evil,  to  the  conquest  of  sin. 
We  long  for  some  new  appearing  of  God.  But  He 
is  here !  Is  there  any  other  manifestation  which 
could  hold  more  of  God  than  Jesus  does?  Is  there 
any  appearing  of  God  which  could  make  Him  more 
accessible  to  us  than  He  is  in  Jesus?  Would  Christ 
be  any  nearer  to  us  than  it  is  possible  for  Him  to  be 
to-day,  if  we  met  Him  walking  down  the  street  to- 
morrow morning?  It  is  our  spiritual  grasp  of  Him 
which  counts,  not  the  material  handshake.  It  is  our 
attitude  to  His  truth,  not  the  bowing  of  the  knee  and 
the  lips  that  call  Him  "  Lord  " ;  it  is  our  knowledge 
of  His  mind  that  matters,  not  the  vibrant  challenge 
of  His  voice.  Why  need  He  have  gone  away  at  all, 
as  He  Himself  said,  if  it  were  not  to  bring  Him 
nearer,  shaking  us  free  of  His  material  touch,  to 
compel  our  spiritual  apprehension. 

The  truth  is  that  for  all  of  us,  Christ  is  very  largely 
an  unexplored  possibility.  John  Newton,  the  hymn 
writer,  tells  a  story  of  a  preacher  friend  of  his,  who 
had  given  only  a  cold  superficial  consent  to  the 
truths  of  the  gospel.  He  was  reading  one  day  in 
the  Ephesians,  when  he  was  arrested  by  that  great 
word  of  Paul — "the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ." 
"The  apostle,"  he  said  to  himself,  "uses  most  re- 
markable words.  He  speaks  of  heights  and  depths 
and  lengths  and  breadths  of  things  that  are  un- 
searchable. Now  I  have  known  nothing  of  this  in 
Christ."  And  he  began  to  study  and  search,  till  the 
words  of  Paul  and  of  Christ  became  alive  with  reality. 
Is  not  this  very  much  the  case  with  those  who  are 
disappointed  in  Christ,  or  who  are  longing  and 
hoping  for  some  salvation  beyond  what  comes 
through   faith   in    Him?     Why   does   the   Kingdom 


AN  ECLIPSE  OF  FAITH  119 

tarry?  Why  need  it  tarry?  There  are  infinite 
marvels  in  the  physical  world  waiting  for  the  open 
eye  and  the  open  mind.  They  are  there  at  our  doors, 
knocking.  They  are  there  in  the  tubes  and  under 
the  microscope,  as  a  research  scholar  said  to  me  the 
other  day.  Is  it  different  with  the  spiritual  world, 
the  world  of  divine  forces  ?  Have  we  been  to  the 
depths  of  the  inexhaustible  resources  of  Christ? 

Most  of  us  have  listened  to  the  common  complaint 
that  Christianity  has  failed,  till  we  are  sick  of  the 
phrase.  It  has  become  the  cant  of  many,  who  say 
it  with  a  triumphant  sneer,  which  ill  conceals  the  fact 
that  they  never  wanted  Christianity  to  succeed. 
Yet  the  phrase  stands  for  a  confession  that  the  war 
has  found  us  out  in  much  religious  unreality.  If 
Christianity  has  failed,  it  is  because  there  are  depths 
in  Jesus  that  have  never  been  explored.  The  war 
has  uncovered  our  failure,  not  His — our  failure  to 
be  true  to  His  trust.  And  its  message  is  a  call  to 
move  out. 

It  is  a  larger,  braver  spirit  of  adventure  we  need, 
if  we  are  to  make  a  deeper  discovery.  I  remember, 
some  years  ago,  a  fleet  of  torpedo  boats  was  anchored 
in  Oban  Bay.  How  safe  they  looked  in  that  land- 
locked haven,  in  the  calm  of  a  sunny  afternoon  • 
But  at  night  a  storm  swept  down  the  Sound  and 
immediately  there  was  great  confusion,  the  play  of 
searchlights,  the  shriek  of  sirens,  and  one  by  one 
they  left  the  safe  anchorage  and  steamed  out  to 
sea.  What  had  happened  ?  This :  their  short  cables 
were  safe  enough  for  calm  weather,  but  in  the  narrow 
bay  these  could  not  hold  the  ships  when  the  storm 
was  up.  The  only  place  of  safety  and  freedom  was 
the  wide  deep  sea  without.     That  is  the  mess-ige  for 


120  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

our  time,  with  its  confusion  and  strain.  The  narrow 
sea  of  our  restricted  religion,  and  the  short  cables  of 
our  mechanical  attachments  to  Christ  are  not  only 
useless ;  they  are  dangerous  to  faith.  We  must 
move  out  into  the  deeper  ocean  of  His  love  and  the 
wider  tasks  of  His  Kingdom,  if  we  would  find  Him 
afresh.  Our  faith  must  strike  once  more  the  great 
notes  of  trust  and  adventure.  Then  life  will  fill  with 
the  music  of  His  love. 


THE   TYRANNY   OF  THINGS 

"Martha,  Martha,  thou  art  careful  and  troubled  about  many  things: 
but  one  thing  is  needful :  and  Mary  hath  chosen  that  good  part,  which 
shall  not  be  taken  away  from  her."— Luke  x.  41.  42- 

This  story  has  raised  more  controversy  than  any 
other  in  the  Bible,  except  perhaps  the  case  of  Esau 
and  Jacob.  In  spite  of  the  Bible  estimate,  most 
people  have  a  sneaking  fondness  for  Esau,  while 
Jacob  is  almost  universally  despised.  In  this 
case  most  people  have  the  feeling  that  Martha, 
the   practical   housewife,    has   been   a   little   harshly 

judged. 

The  story  is  one  of  those  familiar  incidents  which 
are    part    of    our    everyday    lives.      With    a    little 
imagination  we   can  see  the  whole  thing  happening 
before  our  eyes.     The  sisters  lived  together  and  Christ 
was  their  great  friend.     One  day  He  made  a  sudden 
visit  to  their  house,  probably  accompanied  by  other 
friends.     Hospitality  demanded  that  they  should  be 
given  a  meal.     Martha   set   about    getting  it  ready, 
and  soon  there  was  great  commotion  in  the  kitchen. 
But  Mary,  on  the  other  hand,   lingered    in    Christ's 
presence,    and    finally    settled    herself    at    His    feet, 
drinking  in  His  words  till  her  mind  became  absorbed 
and  dinner  was  forgotten.     For  a  while  Martha  said 
nothing,  but  at  last  her  irritation  mastered  her  and 
she  exploded  on  the  company  in  righteous  indigna- 


122  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

tion.  *'  Lord,  dost  Thou  not  care  that  my  sister  hath 
left  me  to  serve  alone?  Bid  her  come  and  help  me." 
But  Jesus  turned  on  her  with  a  gentle  rebuke,  smiling 
the  while,  "  Martha,  Martha,  thou  art  careful  and 
troubled  about  many  things  :  but  one  thing  is  needful : 
and  Mary  hath  chosen  that  good  part,  which  shall 
not  be  taken  awa3r  from  her." 

Our  first  instinct  is  to  feel  that  Christ  has  hardly 
done  justice  to  Martha.  She  was  the  practical 
woman  whose  love  finds  an  outlet  in  caring  for  what 
we  call  the  "  creature  "  comforts.  After  all,  we  would 
not  get  on  well  without  a  housewife  in  the  kitchen, 
especially  with  guests  in  the  house.  If  all  women 
were  Marys,  who  would  cook  the  dinner?  Does 
Christ  do  full  justice  to  Martha's  womanly  instincts, 
not  to  speak  of  her  self-denial,  for  she,  as  well 
as  Mary,  must  have  been  longing  to  listen  to  His 
talk? 

Some  people  solve  this  problem  by  talking  of 
two  temperaments.  Mary  was  the  thoughtful  and 
mystical  type  with  no  head  for  practical  details 
and  no  taste  for  housework.  Martha  was  the  kind  of 
person  who  is  never  so  happy  as  when  she  is  busy 
about  a  house.  The  one  makes  the  poetry,  the  other 
the  prose  of  life,  and  neither  can  be  turned  into  the 
other.  Mr.  Stephen  Graham  sees  these  two  tempera- 
ments illustrated  in  Russian  and  English  religion. 
The  Western  type  is  business-like  and  practical  in  its 
religion — the  Eastern  type  is  mystical  and  contem- 
plative, caring  for  no  pain  or  discomfort  while  the 
soul  dreams  of  hidden  things.  But  the  problem  is 
not  so  easily  solved  as  that.  Christ  was  an  Eastern, 
but  His  mind  was  universal.  No  one  was  ever  so 
perfectly  balanced  in  nature  so  harmoniously  blended 


THE  TYRAxNxNY  OF  THINGS  123 

as   Jesus.     What   did    He   mean   by  this  rebuke  to 
Martha? 

The  answer  is  simple  and  gets  to  the  root  of  many 
of  the  troubles  of  life.  It  was  a  clear  case  of  the 
tyranny  of  thiiigs.  Things  have  their  place  in  life. 
We  live  in  a  material  world.  Our  nature  has  its 
physical  side.  Right  through,  life  is  a  traffic  in 
things  which  our  hands  handle  and  our  bodies  wear. 
Our  most  spiritual  fellowships  have  their  medium  in 
material  things — gifts,  words,  smiles,  caresses.  All 
these  on  the  material  side  are  things.  The  dearest 
word  of  love  is  only  a  vibration  in  the  ether  striking 
upon  a  sensitive  bit  of  nerve.  The  finest  violin  music 
is  on  the  material  side  only  "  the  scraping  of  hair 
upon  catgut."  Life  is  one  long  piece  of  symbolism. 
The  trouble  comes  when  things  take  the  first  place 
and  lose  their  meaning  by  becoming  an  end  in 
themselves.  Then  life  is  materialized  and  we  lose 
it  through  absorption  in  the  mechanism  of  living. 
This  was  what  was  happening  to  Martha.  The 
tyranny  of  things  was  getting  hold  oi  her.  It  was 
this  Jesus  rebuked.  "  Martha,  Martha,  thou  art  care- 
ful and  troubled  about  things-,  but  Mary  has  chosen 
that  better  part,  which  shall  not  be  taken  away  from 
her." 

There  are  two  suggestions  here.  In  the  first  place 
it  was  a  warning,  and  a  plea  for  simplicity  in  the 
material  things  of  life.  Christ  did  not  mean  that  the 
guests  should  go  without  their  dinner.  The  body 
must  be  fed.  No  man  can  live  the  highest  kind  of 
life  on  a  starvation  diet.  He  did  not  expect  His 
message  to  get  home  to  people  whose  bodies  were 
weary  with  toil  and  bitter  with  need.  That  is  what 
we  often  forget.     Some  people  would  deal  with  otiicis 


124  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

as  if  they  were  pure  spirit.  There  is  no  such  being-— 
on  this  planet  at  least.  There  are  people  in  our  own 
land  who  are  physically  incapable  of  listening  to  any 
gospel  of  love  which  eloquence  of  persuasion  can 
utter.  They  are  sunk  in  a  death-struggle  for  exist- 
ence which  takes  up  all  their  thought  and  leaves  them 
nothing  over.  It  is  difficult  not  to  be  a  materialist 
when  a  man  is  starving.  The  body  must  be  satisfied 
before  the  soul  can  rise  into  the  contemplation  of 
higher  things.  There  are  people  to  whom  you  can- 
not carry  the  gospel  in  any  other  form  than  a  loaf 
of  bread — to  them  the  only  sacramental  medium  of 
the  love  of  Christ. 

But  that  is  far  from  saying  that  we  are  to  swing  to 
the  opposite  pole.  The  trouble  is  we  so  readily  drift 
into  an  artificial  standard  of  what  is  necessary  for 
life.  Christ's  demand  was  very  simple.  He  did  not 
want  an  elaborate  meal,  only  a  simple  dish,  which 
Martha  could  have  prepared  without  much  trouble  or 
any  strain  to  her  spirit.  But  Martha  had  her  own 
ideas.  She  had  doubtless  a  reputation  for  hospitality. 
What  would  people  think  if  she  did  not  rise  to  the 
occasion?  So  the  process  of  elaboration  went  on, 
till  the  dinner  became  the  end  and  object  of  her 
care  instead  of  the  medium  of  her  friendship.  Her  love 
lost  itself  in  seeking  too  fine  a  way  of  expressing 
itself,  and  her  mind  became  overloaded  with  worries 
which  clouded  her  spirit  and  filled  the  whole  house 
with  unrest.  "  One  thing  is  needed,"  said  Christ. 
It  was  a  plea  for  simplicity.  Do  not  let  things 
become  your  master.  Do  not  let  your  life  be  so 
burdened  with  things  that  its  meaning  is  lost  Do  not 
let  the  means  of  living  become  the  master  of  life.  His 
warnmg  and  His  call  come  home  to  us  to-day.     How 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS  125 

many  people,  for  instance,  begin  life  with  certain 
necessities.  As  their  income  grows  they  add  luxuries, 
and  feel  aggrieved  if  they  cannot  get  them.  They 
climb  into  a  higher  social  scale  which  demands 
a  larger  house,  greater  spending,  more  elaborate 
entertaining.  So  the  tyranny  of  things  grows,  while 
all  the  time,  if  only  they  knew  it,  they  are  losing  peace 
and  freedom  and  opening  their  souls  to  a  thousand 
petty  anxieties  and  disappointments.  How  many 
people  to-day  imagine  they  possess  a  house  while  in 
reality  the  house  possesses  them  !  How  many  are 
there  who  spend  their  days  following  a  fashion  which 
in  their  hearts  they  despise,  making  calls  in  which 
there  is  no  friendship,  giving  their  days  to  rounds  of 
social  duty  and  fashionable  entertainments  which  bore 
them  to  extinction,  but  from  which  their  artificial 
society  gives  them  no  release. 

They  con  the  ritual  of  routine 

With  minds  to  one  dead  likeness  blent, 

And  never  even  in  dreams  have  seen 
The  things  that  are  more  excellent. 

We  can  become  the  victims  of  plenty  as  well  as  the 
victims  of  poverty.  We  can  be  sunk  in  a  mansion  as 
well  as  in  a  hovel.  When  "  the  thing  to  do  "  becomes 
more  important  than  the  rightness  of  the  man  who 
does  it  or  the  spirit  he  puts  into  it,  life  is  being  lost 
in  seeking  it,  and  the  car  has  begun  to  run  off  with 
the  driver. 

The  real  truth  is  that  half  of  the  things  we 
call  necessities  are  not  necessities  at  all  but  super- 
fluities, and  we  should  be  a  good  deal  happier  without 
them.  We  speak  of  our  burdens  and  difficulties,  our 
troubles  and  cares.  How  many  of  these  are  legiti- 
mate ?     How  many  of  them  did  we  find  in  the  track 


126  THE  VICTORY   OF  GOD 

of  a  shining  purpose,  and  how  many  have  come 
in  the  pathway  of  some  shallow  ideal  which  had  no 
right  in  our  souls  at  all.  One  of  Christ's  greatest 
words  is  His  recipe  for  care,  "  Your  Father  knoweth." 
How  sweetly  it  falls  on  the  ear  !  But  dare  we  take 
it  to  our  hearts  in  some  of  our  self-created  troubles  ? 
Dare  we  go  on  to  apply  it  to  our  souls  when  we  are 
struggling  and  straining  to  carry  our  self-imposed 
load  of  superfluous  things  or  burdensome  conventions. 
"Your  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  all  these 
things  ! "  No  !  the  word  for  such  a  case  is  more  likely 
to  be  the  word  of  the  husbandman  about  the  useless 
tree,  "  Cut  it  down.  Why  cumbereth  it  the  ground  ?  " 
That  word  "  cumber  "  is  indeed  the  very  word  which 
the  Scripture  uses  of  Martha,  "  She  was  cumbered 
with  much  serving."  Apply  the  parable  and  the  real 
danger  of  the  tyranny  of  things  becomes  clear.  Like 
a  fruitless  tree  in  a  garden,  taking  up  room  which 
might  have  been  given  to  something  fruitful,  so  were 
Martha's  troubles  in  the  rich  soil  of  her  mind  and 
spirit.  They  were  draining  her  strength  and  poison- 
ing her  peace  and  making  her  life  empty  in  pretence 
of  filling  it. 

There  is  even  more  in  the  tyranny  of  things  than 
this.  It  loads  our  own  lives  with  cares  that  need 
never  be  borne,  but  it  also  makes  life  harder  for  other 
people.  It  tries  to  pull  Mary  into  the  stream.  It 
creates  a  false  standard  for  others.  Who  taught 
the  munition  girls  the  disastrous  extravagance  that 
made  them  spend  their  money  on  the  fur  coats  and 
gaudy  jewellery  which  were  a  load  instead  of  an 
enrichment?  It  takes  little  children  at  school  and 
cheapens  life  for  them,  dwarfing  and  cramping  their 
souls  at  the  very  sta'-t  and  turning  them  into  mal- 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS  127 

formed  products  of  convention,  and  mean  ambitions. 
And  it  intensifies  the  struggle  for  others.  It  is  only 
partly  true  that  where  there  is  great  prosperity  for 
some,  others  have  a  share  in  it,  picking  up  the  crumbs 
from  the  rich  man's  table.  The  false  demand  for 
luxuries  on  the  part  of  some  keeps  others  out  of  their 
fair  share  of  life's  necessities.  A  civilization  over- 
loaded with  luxury  at  the  one  end  always  has  a  sink 
of  stark  and  debasing  poverty  at  the  other.  And 
what  creates  this  bitter  struggle  and  raises  this  false 
standard  is  the  tyranny  of  things  over  souls 
which  have  lost  sight  of  the  meaning  of  life  in  the 
struggle  to  live. 

In  all  directions  we  can  see  the  baleful  hand  of  this 
tyranny.  The  man  who  judges  of  sin  by  its  external 
consequences  is  under  it.  Lately  the  world  has  been 
greatly  concerned  about  the  spread  of  social  vice. 
And  there  is  grave  cause  for  alarm.  But  the  gravest 
thing  in  the  whole  campaign  is  the  fact  that  we  are  not 
concerned  with  the  sin,  but  with  the  physical  results ; 
not  with  the  danger  of  moral  pollution,  but  only  with 
the  danger  of  physical  contamination.  When  we  so 
deal  with  evil  we  are  under  the  tyranny  of  things. 

You  can  see  the  same  tyranny  in  religious  matters. 
Creeds  are  necessary  to  express  our  experience  of 
God.  But  at  the  best  a  creed  is  only  a  thing,  not 
the  reality.  The  reality  is  our  contact  with  God  in 
Jesus  Christ.  But  there  are  people  so  careful  about 
many  things  in  the  intellectual  baggage  of  their 
religious  life,  that  they  miss  the  living  Jesus.  The 
same  is  true  of  ritual  worship — even  of  the  sacraments. 
These  are  necessary,  but  they  are  things.  They  are 
meant  to  assist  our  spiritual  vision.  But  how  soon 
they  begin  to  take  up  the  whole  field  till  we  cannot 


128  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

see  the  glory  of  our  Lord  for  the  things  which  are 
meant  to  reveal  Him  ;  and  Christian  love,  which  is 
the  vital  reality  of  our  common  life  in  His  service, 
becomes  dissipated  in  a  quarrel  about  things. 

Or  again,  there  are  even  deeper  tragedies  — 
tragedies  on  a  wider  scale.  Our  civilization  has 
seen  a  marvellous  increase  in  the  materials  of  life, 
but  is  the  sum  of  human  happiness  any  greater? 
To  what  has  it  all  led  ?  Look  back  a  year  or  two. 
Many  causes  are  given  for  the  late  war.  The 
overweening  ambition  of  one  nation  lit  the  spark. 
But  the  progress  of  civilization  had  created  a 
machine  which  was  too  big  for  our  moral  power 
to  direct,  and  it  took  control  and  smashed  up. 
Had  we  not  all  lost  sight  of  the  real  object  of 
national  prosperity,  which  is  to  serve  humanity? 
The  idols  of  material  success  had  usurped  the 
throne.  The  growth  of  wealth  and  inventive  skill 
had  choked  out  religion,  and  humanity  without 
faith  is  like  men  shut  in  a  mine ;  they  become 
asphyxiated  with  the  products  of  their  own  unin- 
spired breath. 

The  warning  of  Christ  is  clearly  needed,  and  His 
call  is,  in  the  first  place,  for  a  new  simplicity.  It  is 
the  effort  to  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  things  and 
find  freedom,  for  the  soul  to  see  its  way  and  live  its 
own  life,  which  has  sent  hermits  into  the  desert  and 
monks  into  the  cloister.  Their  instinct  is  sound.  If 
we  are  to  be  ready  at  God's  call  we  must  be  free,  and 
we  must  cultivate  the  spirit  of  detachment.  For  this 
freedom  we  must  pay  the  price  of  self-denial,  and 
keep  a  guard  upon  the  encroachment  of  material 
things,  lest  in  gaining  the  world  we  lose  our  souls. 
When  we  lose  the  pilgrim  spirit,  and  forget  that  we 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS  129 

are  strangers  on  the  earth,  we  lose  the  earth  itself. 
Only  the  man  who  is  detached  from  the  world  can  so 
use  the  world  as  to  possess  its  real  joy  and  satisfac- 
tion. When  Garibaldi  was  an  exile  in  South  America, 
he  employed  his  time  in  freeing  the  little  republic  of 
Rio  Grande,  and  was  successful.  But  he  himself  lived 
as  a  poor  man.  During  his  absence  his  wife  was  so 
reduced  in  circumstances  that  she  had  not  even  a 
candle  to  light  the  house  at  nightfall.  After  the 
campaign  was  over,  the  citizens  offered  the  hero 
lands,  money,  rewards  of  all  sorts.  But  everything  he 
steadily  refused  for  himself  and  his  companions,  lest 
it  should  tempt  them  to  settle  down  and  forget  their 
life-task  of  freeing  distant  Italy.  He  refused  to  be 
enslaved  by  the  tyranny  of  things  and  so  miss  the 
purpose  of  life.  He  would  not  be  entangled  in  the 
shadows  and  miss  the  substance.  Christ  calls  us 
all  to  a  new  grasp  of  the  meaning  of  life  and 
the  things  we  do  and  possess,  that  the  care  and 
trouble  of  things  may  not  cheat  us  out  of  joy  and 
peace. 

But  there  is  a  second  call  in  Christ's  words ;  it  is  a 
call  to  find  the  secret  of  reality.  "  Mary  hath  chosen 
that  good  part,  which  shall  not  be  taken  away  from 
her."  What  was  that  good  part?  She  was  listening 
to  His  talk  about  life.  She  was  penetrating  through 
things  to  the  meanmg  of  things.  She  was  learning 
what  life  is  ?  Life  is  not  in  things  ;  but  in  the  mean- 
ing of  things.  Life  consists  in  the  love  of  beauty, 
not  in  a  houseful  of  pictures.  Life  consists  in 
knowing  truth ;  and  we  may  have  a  whole  library 
of  books  and  miss  that  real  culture  which  is  found  in 
touch  with  great  and  living  minds.  Life  consists  in 
love  and  friendship,  and  we  may  have  many  fine 
9 


130  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

friends  and  miss  the  friendly  spirit.  As  Bacon  says: 
"  Faces  are  but  a  gallery  of  pictures,  and  talk  is  but 
a  tinkling  cymbal,  where  there  is  no  love."  Life 
consists  in  the  service  of  others,  not  in  the  position 
we  hold  or  the  wages  or  profits  we  earn.  We  need  to 
get  back  to  Christ's  standard  of  values,  back  to  His 
estimate  of  good  and  evil.  The  man  who  sees  things 
with  the  eyes  of  Jesus  is  delivered  from  their  tyranny 
into  the  management  and  mastery  of  things. 

We  must  get  back  to  realities,  which  means  getting 
back  to  God,  for  His  is  the  love  and  fellowship  which 
breathes  through  all  things. 

What  is  fullness  of  life  when  you  get  to  the  root  of 
it  ?     It  consists  in  the  exercise  of  all  our  capacities. 
If  there  is   one  vital   instinct  which   is  repressed  or 
unawakened,  there  is  an  inward  strain  which  fills  us 
with  fretfulness.     Many  people  carry  in  their  breasts 
a  conflict  which  they  try  to  suppress.     They  pretend 
they  are  happy,  but  their  lives  give  the  lie  to  their 
words.      That   was    what   was  wrong   with   Martha. 
She  was  absorbed  in  things,  but  the  things  did  not 
satisfy  her  soul.     She  had  a  soul  above  mere  dinners, 
but   her    soul,   seeking   for    expression,   was   baffled 
and  overloaded,  till  the  strain  within  broke  out  in  a 
storm  of  irritation  and  bad  temper.     There  is  some- 
thing in  us  all  which  will  not  be  satisfied  with  things. 
For  you  and  I  are  not  things.     The  root  of  unrest  at 
the  top  and  bottom  of  the  social  scale  lies  here.     On 
the  one  hand,  the  soul  is  denied  the  things  by  which 
to  express  itself;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  choked  in  a 
superfluity  of  things  like  a  river  which  is  lost  in  mud 
and  sand.     We  must  find  ways  of  living  which  shal' 
liberate  our  souls  or  we  are  running  upon  disaster 
And  most  of  all,  we  must  express  our  instinct  for  God 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS  131 

which  of  all  our  instincts  is  the  deepest,  and  realize  that 
loving  fellowship  with  the  Father  in  which  all  life's 
activities  find  a  place,  for  "  there  is  no  rest  for  us  till 
we   find   our  rest  in   Him."      Life  is  mere  wrestling 
in  the  darkness   till   it  has  yielded  up  its   meaning 
in   the    knowledge   of    God's    love.      Then    the   sun 
rises  upon  us  in  a  world  which  is  our  Father's.     In 
his  book.  The  Great  Hunger,  Johan  Bojer  tells  of  a 
young  and  clever  engineer,  with  boundless  ambition 
but  without  any  faith,  who  gave  himself  to  his  pro- 
fession with  all  his  nature:  "Into  this  world  of  fire 
and    smoke   and    glowing   iron,   racing    wheels    and 
steam    hammers,   he   thrust    his  way,  intent  on    one 
thing— to  learn,  and  learn,  and  ever  learn."     In  time 
he  made  a  fortune  and  retired.     But  he  could  find  no 
peace  in  a  country  life.     The  steel  called  him,  and  he 
set  to  work  upon  an    invention   which  baffled   him. 
He  failed,  and  tried  again,  spent  all  his  money  and 
kept  spending,  for  the   steel    had    got   hold  of  him. 
His  mind  then  began   to  give   way.     One  night  he 
imagined  he  saw  a  dim  shape  in  his  workshop  which 
said  to  him,  "  It  will  do  no  good  to  pray.     You  may 
dream  yourself  away  from  these  things,  but  you  must 
offer  yourself  to  them  at  last.     You  are  bound  fast  to 
these  things.     Outside  of  them  your  soul  is  nothing." 
The   tyranny   of    things   was   complete.     A    broken 
man,  he  crept  away  to  a  quiet  spot  in  the  hills  and 
there  he  lived   out  his   days  with   shattered    nerves. 
But  he  found  the  way  of  peace  at  last.     It  was  in 
o-iving  way  to  a  fine  impulse  of  his  soul.     His  child 
was  killed  by  the  dog  of  a  surly  neighbour  who  was 
very  poor,  and  the  father  seemed  to  have  reached  the 
last  abyss  of  pain.     Then  one  night  he  rose  up,  took 
a  bag  of  seed  and  sowed  it  in  the  neighbour's  empty 


132  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

field.  "  I  went  and  sowed  seed  in  my  enemy's  field 
that  God  might  exist,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend.  It  was 
a  strange  way  to  put  it.  But  he  was  falling  back  on 
the  last  reality  of  love  and  forgiveness  which  in  the 
abyss  had  risen  out  of  the  darkness  to  find  him.  He 
had  come  back  to  reality  and  found  it,  not  in  things, 
but  in  God.  Life  at  its  deepest  is  love,  for  love  is 
God.  "  When  people  love,"  says  an  Eastern  proverb, 
"  they  dig  a  fountain  down  to  God."  Christ's  name 
for  the  springing  waters  of  that  fountain  is  "  eternal 
life." 

The  way  to  learn  this  secret  and  find  this  life 
awaking  in  our  hearts,  is  to  give  ourselves  up  to  Jesus. 
That  w^s  what  Mary  was  doing.  Listening  to  Him, 
loving  Him,  she  was  reaching  contact  with  God.  In 
His  presence  her  values  were  changing.  She  was 
seeing  life  through,  seeing  through  the  surface  of 
things — fashion  and  money  and  what  men  miscall  the 
solid  realities — through  to  the  tender  and  loving  face 
of  God.  In  His  presence,  too,  the  purpose  of  God  in 
Christ  laid  hold  of  her  heart,  and  with  that  purpose 
in  her  soul  she  broke  a  path  through  all  the  entang- 
ling maze  of  things  into  a  new  world  of  joy  and  peace. 
She  was  learning  from  Christ  that  art  of  handling 
things  which  makes  them  truly  ours,  working  for  our 
good  and  making  us  of  larger  service  to  men.  Could 
any  but  Mary  have  taken  the  costly  alabaster  box  of 
ointment  and  seen  its  true  value  in  breaking  it  and 
pouring  its  costly  contents  over  the  feet  of  Jesus? 
She  had  found  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  things  into 
the  possession  of  life. 

Our  deepest  need  to-day  is  to  get  back  to  Jesus 
and  give  ourselves  up  to  Him  to  learn  His  secret. 
For  that,  we  must  find  time  to  hold  the  door  against 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS  133 

the  tyrannous  invasion  of  the  world.  Our  trouble  is, 
we  have  allowed  the  world  to  force  its  false  values 
upon  us  till  truth  is  lost  in  the  deceit  of  appearances. 
Lately  we  read  of  an  artificial  pearl  which  has  found 
its  way  on  the  market,  deceiving  the  unwary.  But  a 
way  was  found  of  detecting  the  fraud ;  the  X-rays 
showed  it  up — the  rays  that  pierce  through  things. 
That  is  the  power  of  Jesus.  When  we  take  our  life 
out  of  the  garish  day  and  lay  it  open  to  Him,  its  real 
treasure  opens  up.  Are  we  being  tricked  with  false 
pearls  in  the  market  of  life,  or  have  we  found  the 
pearl  of  great  price?  Are  we  gaining  the  spiritual 
mind  which  sees  through  things  to  find  God  every- 
where? Or  are  we  passing  through  God's  world 
without  meeting  with  God  ?  Then  let  us  seek  Jesus, 
praying  the  prayer,  "Lord,  open  mine  eyes  that  I 
may  see  " — and  the  tyranny  of  things  will  be  lifted 
in  a  great  experience,  which,  as  Drummond  says,  is 
"  like  the  breaking  of  a  chain  or  the  waking  from  a 
dream." 


HOW  CHRIST  WINS  HIS  WAY 

*'  And  Zaccheus  said,  Behold,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the  poor ; 
and  if  I  have  taken  aught  from  any  man  by  extortion,  I  restore  him 
fourfold." 

♦'  And  Jesus  said,  To-day  is  salvation  come  to  this  house,  forasmuch 
as  this  man  also  is  a  son  of  Abraham."— Luke  xix.  8,  9. 

The  city  of  Jericho  is  famous  in  Scripture  for  two 
social  outcasts  who  found  salvation  there — the  harlot 
Rahab  and  the  publican  Zaccheus.  They  were  the 
last  people  one  would  have  expected  to  reach  a  place 
in  the  ranks  of  faith.  Yet  Rahab's  name  is  found 
in  the  nth  of  Hebrews  among  the  honourable 
company  of  spiritual  pioneers ;  while  Zaccheus  had 
from  the  lips  of  Christ  Himself  the  assurance  that 
he  had  come  into  the  Kingdom.  He  had  Christ's 
own  guarantee  of  His  standing  with  God,  "  To-day 
is  salvation  come  to  this  house." 

The  story  of  his  conversion  is  one  of  the  clearest 
illustrations  of  the  method  by  which  Christ  wins 
men.  It  is  a  description  of  the  love  of  God  in 
action.  The  method  He  used  throughout  had  His 
characteristic  touch.  It  was  the  method  of  saving 
friendship.  The  great  difficulty  in  saving  and  help- 
ing people  is  the  difficulty  of  jetting  alongside.  We 
may  have  a  message  we  yearn  to  speak ;  the  problem 
is  to  find  men  in  the  mood,  or  bring  them  into  the 
mood,  where  they  will  listen.  Christ's  way  was  the 
method    of  a  friendship  which  broke   down  barriers 


134 


HOW  CHRIST  WINS  HIS  WAY         135 

of  resistance  and  suspicion,  and  made  a  way  for  a 
love    which   was    at    once   the    messenger    and    the 
message.     Men     can     never    be    brought     into    the 
Kingdom  by  any  other  power  than  a  persuasive  and 
winsome    love   which    is    God's    only   way.     Oliver 
Wendell    Holmes    compares    a   human    heart    to   a 
house  with  two  doors — a  front  door  and  a  side  door. 
"The    front    door   is   on   the   street.     Some  keep   it 
always    open ;    some   latched ;    some   locked ;    some 
bolted — with  a  chain  that  will  let  you  peep  in,  but 
never  get  in  ;   and  some  nail  it  up  so  that  nothing 
can  pass  its  threshold.     The  front  door  leads  into  a 
passage  and  then  into  an  ante-room.     The  side  door 
opens  at  once  into  the  sacred   chambers.  )  There  is 
at  least  one  key  to  this  side  door."     Christ  carried 
no  key  to  the  human  heart  but    the  key  of  loving- 
friendship  ;  and  that  is  not  a  key  at  all  in  the  sense 
that  He  will  turn  the  lock  of  any  man's  secret  soul 
and  force  an  entrance.     His  power  in  point  of  fact 
Is  just  that  He  has  no  key!     His  way  is  to  knock 
with  such  appeal  of  truth  and  love  to  the  heart  of 
the  man  within,   that   he   is  won    at   last   to   unbar 
the   door  and   fling  it  wide.     Where  His  friendship 
fails,  God  fails.     Let  us  be  clear  about  it;   there  is 
no  such  thing   as  omnipotent  and    irresistible  grace 
which   takes  a  soul    by   storm    and    overwhelms   it. 
However  strong  be  love's  persuasions,  they  are  always 
persuasions,  never  compulsions.     God's  method  is  the 
love  that  knocks  and  waits  and  knocks  again,  enduring 
slights  and  rejection  with  a  meek  endurance  v^^hich  is 
love's  only  weapon  to  break  the  hardness  of  men's 
hearts.     This  story  is  a  clear  example  of  how  Christ 
won    His    way   into    a    man's   life   through   all   his 
defences  and  brought  him  into  the  Kingdom. 


136  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

There  are  three  stages  in  this  story,  three  steps 
in  the  taking  of  this  fortress  of  man's  soul.  Let  us 
look  at  them  one  by  one. 

The  first  was  the  breach  in  the  outer  wall  of 
indifference.  Zaccheus  was  a  publican,  and  that 
means  much.  He  was  a  tax-gatherer  for  the  Romans, 
who  occupied  the  country.  His  business  was  to 
collect  the  taxes  from  his  own  people  and  hand 
them  over — after  deductions — to  the  Roman  rulers, 
a  post  which  could  hardly  be  held  by  a  man 
who  was  very  sensitive  to  his  nation's  honour.  He 
was,  so  to  speak,  working  for  the  enemy.  Besides, 
he  did  what  most  of  such  men  did  and  took 
advantage  of  his  position  to  screw  as  much  out  of 
the  people  as  he  could  without  regard  to  justice. 
A  publican  was  generally  a  mercenary  who  was 
out  to  make  money  by  fair  means  or  by  foul,  one 
who  would  stick  at  no  scruple  to  wring  it  from 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  those  who  were  not  strong 
enough  to  resist.  No  doubt  Zaccheus  managed  to 
square  his  conscience  and  maintain  a  kind  of  peace. 
I  remember  seeing  the  books  of  a  commercial 
company  of  300  years  ago  which  revealed  quite 
openly  a  system  of  petty  fraud.  At  the  foot  of  each 
page,  as  a  kind  of  sop  to  conscience,  there  was  written 
"  May  God  forgive  this  little  extra  !  "  And  all  these 
things  made  Zaccheus  a  problem  for  Jesus. 

But  Zaccheus  was  not  comfortable.  That  was 
betrayed  in  his  curiosity  which  sent  him  climbing  a 
tree  to  see  Christ  when  He  came.  For  one  thing 
society  was  against  him,  and  made  him  feel  it.  He 
could  feel  the  very  stab  of  their  scornful  eyes  in  his 
back  as  he  walked  along  the  street.  He  was  not 
only   treated   as   a  social    outcast,   but   as   a   moral 


HOW  CHRIST  WINS  HIS   WAY         137 

outcast  who  had  forfeited  his  rights  to  a  place  in  the 
kingdom  of  the  faithful ;  and  that  rankled  in  his 
soul.  It  hurt  him  to  the  quick,  and  made  him  more 
of  an  outcast  than  ever.  That  is  what  all  exclusive- 
ness  does.  When  will  we  learn  it  ?  These  barriers 
which  society  sets  up  against  the  open  sinner  are  a 
self-protecting  instinct  w^hich  seems  legitimate  enough, 
but  they  are  due  to  fear;  they  are  a  confession  of 
weakness.  They  are  a  sign  that  our  goodness  is 
not  strong  enough  to  receive  the  sinner,  and  both 
judge  him  and  save  him  by  our  friendship.  So  we 
cast  him  out  like  a  leper.  And  every  one  know^s,  who 
is  honest,  that  our  standards  of  exclusion  are  merely 
superficial.  We  can  detect  the  wrong  deed ;  we 
cannot  detect  the  wrong  desire.  There  are  people 
entertained  in  society  drawing-rooms  whose  influence 
is  far  more  poisonous  to  society  than  some  of  those 
who  are  shut  in  our  prisons  or  outcast  in  our 
streets.  The  only  way  to  deal  with  the  sinful  is  by 
a  love  strong  enough  to  condemn  their  sin  Lnd  to 
seek  them  and  save  them  through  friendship. 
Society  will  have  to  come  to  the  same  way  of 
dealing  with  its  moral  outcasts  as  it  does  with  its 
physical  wreckage,  which  is  to  love  them  back  to 
health. 

Doubtless  Zaccheus  was  growing  outwardly  harder 
all  the  time,  but  in  his  soul  there  was  a  craving  for 
fellowship,  for  being  counted  as  a  man.  That  was 
what  drew  him  to  Jesus.  He  had  heard  that  Christ 
was  a  friendly  person  whom  no  artificial  barriers  of 
society,  nor  even  the  repute  of  sin,  could  keep  from 
being  friendly.  He  had  heard  that  Christ  ate  with 
publicans  and  sinners,  that  He  was  a  companion  of 
outcasts,  meeting  every  one  without  pride  or  contempt 


138  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

or  any  feeling  of  superiority.  The  thought  struck 
him  that  perhaps  Christ  would  be  a  friend  to  him. 
At  least  it  would  be  good  to  see  the  kind  of  man  who 
was  ready  to  sit  at  everybody's  table  and  never  took 
any  man  at  his  face  value  or  demanded  a  certificate 
of  respectability.  So  the  first  defence — the  barrier 
of  indifference — in  the  soul  of  Zaccheus  was  down, 
and  he  went  out  to  see  Jesus  for  himself 

The  second  stage  was  the  stage  where  Christ  won 
His  way  to  the  inner  citadel  and  made  a  conquest. 
Christ  pursued  the  offensive  in  a  great  adventure  of 
friendship.  "  Come  down,  Zaccheus,  for  to-day  I 
must  abide  at  thy  house."  Zaccheus  was  delighted, 
and  they  went  home  together.  What  they  spoke 
about  we  do  not  know,  but  all  the  time  the  love 
of  God  was  finding  its  way  into  his  soul,  making 
tremendous  changes.  We  have  all  had  the  experience 
of  being  in  the  company  of  one  who  took  us  into  a 
different  world.  He  might  be  a  great  traveller, 
describing  some  picturesque  and  wonderful  country 
across  the  seas.  For  the  moment,  he  brought  us 
into  that  world.  Under  his  spell,  our  grey  and 
commonplace  surroundings  filled  us  with  discontent. 
It  was  something  of  that  kind  that  happened  to 
Zaccheus.  Christ  brought  him  for  a  moment  into 
His  world ;  but  more,  He  made  him  realize  that  he 
belonged  to  it,  like  an  exile  whose  blood  is  stirred 
into  strange  longing  by  pictures  of  home.  The 
closer  he  came  to  Christ,  the  more  his  real  self  awoke 
in  him,  the  more  his  outlook  was  changed.  His 
values  were  altered.  Money  became  nothing  to  him. 
All  in  a  flash  he  saw  something  which  put  his 
wealth  into  its  right  place,  made  it  a  trust  of  God  or 
else  a  heap  of  dust.     He  came  to  see  his  extortion 


HOW  CHRIST  WINS  HIS   WAY         139 

for  what  it  was — a  sin  against  God  and  man,  a 
denial  of  human  brotherhood,  an  outrage  on  God's 
children.  All  these  thoughts  began  to  pass  through 
his  mind,  as  Christ  and  he  sat  talking  together. 
Christ  had  brought  Zaccheus  into  His  world,  the 
spiritual  world,  because  He  had  given  him  the 
changed  mind.  That  is  what  we  call  conversion. 
It  is  giving  a  man  a  new  mind,  a  new  outlook  which 
means  new  interests  and  new  desires.  He  thinks 
new  thoughts  about  God.  He  has  a  new  place  for 
duty.  He  has  a  different  value  for  money.  His 
attitude  to  others  is  changed.  He  is  "  renewed  in 
the  spirit  of  his  mind "  and  therefore  his  world  is 
changed,  for  our  mind  is  the  maker  of  our  world. 
A  man  is  converted  when  he  is  brought  out  of  the 
selfish  man's  world  with  its  false  standards,  its 
material  ambitions,  its  hatreds  and  fears  and  prejudices 
towards  others,  into  Christ's  world  where  we  look  on 
things  and  deal  with  things  and  people  in  Christ's 
way.  Till  that  new  mind  comes,  whatever  a  man's 
emotional  experience  may  be,  he  is  not  saved. 

But  there  was  still  another  step.  It  was  the  step 
of  Zaccheus'  own  will.  He  began  to  live  in  Christ's 
world.  He  took  his  place  there  and  began  to  settle 
down  in  it  and  make  such  changes  as  were  needed 
in  the  life  of  a  man  who  is  living  in  this  new 
world.  "  Lord,"  he  said,  "  the  half  of  my  goods  I 
give  to  the  poor ;  and  if  I  have  taken  aught  frcMi  any 
man  falsely,  I  restore  him  fourfold."  Have  we 
imagination  enough  to  see  what  that  means?  Can 
we  penetrate  what  was  going  on  behind  that  resolu- 
tion ?  The  man  was  putting  into  effect  his  new 
valuation  of  money.  He  was  looking  on  it  as  a 
trust.     He  was  going  to  turn  it  into  the  coinage  of 


140  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

love,  making  it  a  channel  to  others  of  God's  grace. 
He  had  found  his  ambition  changed.  He  no  longer 
sought  to  make  money,  but  to  serve  the  world 
"The  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the  poor."  The 
glory  of  life  is  not  getting  but  giving,  not  grasping 
but  sharing.  He  was  going  to  take  that  position. 
A  new  attitude  and  compassion  had  been  kindled 
in  his  soul  towards  the  needs  and  sufferings  of 
others.  The  poor  were  there  not  to  exploit,  but  to 
serve. 

And  he  faced  up  to  the  light  which  Christ  cast 
upon  his  crooked  life,  looking  the  past  straight  in 
the  face  and  determined  to  put  it  right.  "  If  I  have 
taken  aught  from  any  man  falsely,  I  restore  him 
fourfold."  Fourfold  was  the  amount  a  thief  was 
required  to  restore  if  he  were  convicted  of  fraud. 
This  man  had  been  convicted  by  Christ  of  being  a 
thief,  a  fraudulent  profiteer,  and  he  was  going  to  stand 
up  to  it.  In  his  great  story  The  Scat-let  Letter ^ 
Hawthorne  tells  how  a  man  who  had  wronged  a 
woman  was  so  torn  with  shame  and  a  guilty 
conscience  that  he  went  out  and  stood  in  the  market- 
place on  the  platform  where  adulterers  were  pilloried 
— that  he  might  find  peace  for  his  soul.  Zaccheus 
was  going  to  do  that,  not  in  order  to  find  peace  for 
his  soul,  but  because  he  had  found  peace  for  his  soul. 
He  was  a  thief  whom  Christ  had  turned  into  an 
honest  man,  and  out  of  his  new-found  peace  and 
forgiveness,  in  his  new  character,  he  was  going  to 
"face  the  music,"  standing  in  the  world  for  what  he 
knew  himself  to  be  so  far  as  the  world  was  concerned 
with  it.  For  the  light  he  had  seen  was  love,  and 
being  seen  as  love,  it  had  lost  the  power  to  terrify 
him.     What  did   the  world's   opinion  matter,   when 


HOW  CHRIST  WINS  HIS  WAY         141 

Christ  had  searched  his  soul — in  spite  of  everything, 
had  forgiven  him  ?  The  man  who  knows  himself 
judged  and  forgiven  by  God  is  lifted  into  a  world 
where  society's  verdict  does  not  hold.  Can  you 
wonder,  with  this  revolution  wrought  in  this  man's 
life,  that  Christ  signed  his  passport  to  the  Kingdom 
and  recorded  his  place  in  the  great  order  of  the  new 
humanity:  "This  day  is  salvation  come  to  this 
house." 

What  was  it  that  had  saved  him  ?  Let  us  try  to 
realize  the  power  which  had  wrought  this  wonderful 
change.  It  was  not  some  magic  communication  of 
an  omnipotent  grace  submerging  his  pe'sonality, 
stampeding  his  will.  The  man  was  changed  by 
something  he  had  seen  and  grasped  with  his  mind, 
and  responded  to  with  his  whole  being.  The  only 
magic  was  the  magic  of  the  Divine  love  which  had 
come  forth  to  meet  him  in  Jesus.  I  do  not  think  he 
had  any  theological  explanation  of  it,  though  the 
whole  of  theology  is  in  it.  The  chances  are  he  did 
not  recognize  the  change,  at  first,  as  the  work  of  God 
at  all.  Afterwards,  no  doubt,  he  would  sit  down  to 
think  it  over  and  find  the  real  explanation,  which  is 
that  he  had  met  with  God  in  Christ.  But  at  first 
he  was  only  conscious  of  a  real  and  personal  love. 
And  there  were  two  things  about  it  which  were 
clear. 

I.  This  personal  love  was  seeking  him  as  an 
individual.  Christ  had  picked  him  out  and  marked 
him  down  in  all  his  need ;  and  this  love  had  sought 
him  as  he  was,  and  for  what  he  was,  not  because 
some  one  had  spoken  a  good  word  for  him,  not 
because  he  was  rich  or  in  good  standing,  for  this 
love  condemned  his  illgotten  riches,  and  he  had  no 


142  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

standing  in  the  eyes  of  his  fellows  any  more  than  a 
lost  dog  of  the  streets.  Christ  had  sought  him  for 
himself,  just  because  he  really  loved  him  as  a  friend. 
That  was  the  wonder  of  it !  And  that  fact  lifted  him 
up,  gave  him  a  new  reverence  for  his  own  soul.  He  felt 
as  a  jewel  might  feel  which  has  been  kicked  about 
the  dust  of  the  streets  and  is  found  at  last  by  its 
owner  and  set  in  its  own  place  in  his  breast,  or  like 
a  wandered  child  for  whom  no  one  cares,  who  has 
been  found  by  his  mother  and  recognized  even  in 
filth  and  rags,  and  restored  to  his  home. 

The  vision  of  the  love  of  God  is  the  vision  that 
saves  us,  once  we  have  taken  it  in.  His  is  a  love 
which  is  personal  to  each  one  of  us,  seeking  us 
as  we  are,  and  just  as  we  are  taking  us  into  His 
friendship. 

He  did  not  wait  till  I  came  to  Him, 

But  He  took  me  at  my  worst. 
He  needn't  ever  have  died  for  me, 

If  I  could  have  loved  Him  first. 

Is  there  one  of  us  who  doubts  this  personal  seeking 
love  which  seeks  us  as  we  are?  Do  we  feel  the 
shame  of  our  own  sin  so  deeply  that  we  cannot 
believe  it?  Or  has  the  world  despised  us  till  we 
have  accepted  its  verdict  and  sunk  into  the  dust  of 
self-contempt?  Or  have  we  been  tempted  to  feel 
that  we  are  just  bits  of  flotsam  and  jetsam  on  a  great 
uncharted  ocean.  Get  close  to  Jesus;  see  how  He 
sought  men  one  by  one,  offering  them  friendship. 
That  seeking  personal  love  is  the  seeking  personal 
love  of  God.  All  that  Christ  ever  was,  abides.  The 
methods  of  Jesus  are  the  ways  of  God.  The  love 
that  shone  in  Him  is   the  heart-beat  of  the  Father. 


HOW   CHRIST  WINS  HIS  WAY         143 

Get  close  to  Him.  Open  your  eyes,  and  the  closer 
you  get,  the  more  you  will  feel  the  power  of  that 
love  stealing  out  to  you  and  filling  heaven  and  earth 
with  its  glory.  To  give  yourself  to  that  love,  to 
what  it  asks  of  you,  accepting  what  it  offers  you,  is 
salvation. 

2.  But  again :  Zaccheus  saw  that  love  as  suffering 
for  him.  He  saw  that  the  other  people  hated  Christ 
for  this  very  act.  Jesus  defied  society  in  seeking 
Zaccheus.  He  had  to  pass  through  the  fire  of  their 
disapproval,  which  flamed  from  their  very  eyes  and 
would  fain  have  burned  Him  up.  Zaccheus  felt  their 
scorn,  heard  their  slanderous  whispers,  "  Birds  of  a 
feather  flock  together."  He  saw  that  Christ  had 
taken  on  Himself  the  scorn  of  a  society  which  would 
yet  pay  Him  back  with  interest  and  do  to  Him 
what  they  would  fain  have  done  to  himself.  Making 
a  friend  of  Zaccheus  he  made  Himself  "  of  no  reputa- 
tion." It  was  a  love  that  suffered  for  the  sake  of 
friendship,  suffered  to  fill  his  lonely  life  with  love, 
suffered  to  make  him  an  honest  man.  What  a  love  it 
was!  The  more  he  looked  on  it,  like  Christian  at 
the  Cross,  the  more  he  wondered  "till  the  springs 
that  were  in  his  head  sent  the  waters  down  his 
cheeks "  in  tears  of  penitence  and  gratitude.  His 
crooked  soul  was  shot  through  with  a  light  which 
showed  up  every  twist  and  shadow  and  made  him 
shudder  with  loathing  and  shame.  From  that  moment 
the  past  was  dead,  and  Zaccheus  was  a  new  man 
living  in  a  new  world,  which  was  lovelit  and  love- 
mastered  from  end  to  end  and  turned  upside  down. 

That  is  the  vision  that  saves  us,  breaking  our 
hearts,  and  making  us  hate  evil  like  nothing  else 
on    earth.      The    love    which    changes    men    is    a 


144  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

wounded  love  which  suffers  and  will  go  through 
anything  to  save  us.  That  is  what  God  is — suffer- 
ing Love.  There  is  no  other  power  that  can 
change  the  world.  We  are  hoping  and  longing  for 
a  revival  and  some  people  expect  it  to  come  in  a 
great  and  startling  revelation  of  Divine  force.  But 
the  one  thing  which  will  bring  revival  is  not  any 
sudden  descent  of  an  Almighty  power  from  heaven. 
It  is  such  a  new  vision  of  God's  love  in  Christ,  seeking 
us  through  everything  and  suffering  with  us  in  every- 
thing, that  it  will  awaken  a  response  of  penitence  and 
faith  rising  up  in  a  new  and  victorious  manhood. 

When  Tennyson  was  dying,  some  one  asked  him  if 
there  was  anything  he  wanted.  "  Yes,"  he  answered 
faintly,  "a  new  vision  of  God."  A  new  vision  of 
God — that  is  what  this  dying  world  needs.  That  is 
the  secret  of  all  resurrections  and  revivals.  We  need 
a  new  vision  of  God,  and  yet  not  a  new  vision,  but 
the  recovery  of  the  deep,  deep  truth  of  the  vision 
of  God  in  Jesus  which  we  have  lost  amid  the  drift 
of  life  and  the  superstitions  which  gather  in  the 
empty  mind  to  take  revenge  upon  us  for  our  cold 
altars.  What  is  the  true  vision  of  God  ?  It  has  its 
heights  and  its  depths — but  its  central  fire  is  a  love 
which  suffers  everything,  and  loves  on,  and  has  no 
power  to  break  down  our  resistance  but  the  power 
to  suffer  and  endure.  Let  that  vision  sweep  out  the 
old  grim  thought  of  a  punishing  God  who  is  always 
seeking  to  get  even  with  us  for  our  sins.  Where 
shall  we  see  it?  We  can  see  it  everywhere  if  we 
have  the  eyes  to  look.  Three  years  ago  the  earth 
was  scarred  and  torn  with  the  wounding  of  man's 
hatred.  To-day  the  scarred  lands  are  green  with 
beauty  and  decked  with    flowers.     Is  there  no  love 


HOW  CHRIST  WINS  HIS  WAY         145 

there?  One  of  our  modern  poets  finds  in  those  fresh 
springing  flowers  a  forgiveness  which  is  with  such 
unplumbed  depths  of  loving  almost  too  awful  to 
receive. 

I  could  not  face 
The  scourge  of  God's  forgiveness  !     I  could  bear, 
Amid  the  world's  red  guilt  and  black  despair, 
Thy  wraih,   I  cried,  but  not  Thy  mercy,  Lord. 
O  spare  me  from  the  year's  unfolding  grace, 
For  every  flower  is  a  two-edged  sword. 

But  if  you  want  to  see  it  clearest,  you  must  go  to 
Calvary.  You  must  see  it  in  that  Friend  who  came 
seeking  men,  and  whom  they  called  a  traitor  and 
made  an  outcast,  and  numbered  Him  with  the 
criminals,  and  smote  him  with  their  blustering  hatred  ; 
yet  could  not  destroy  His  friendship.  He  rose  from 
the  grave  to  love  men  still. 

Are  you  waiting  for  God's  power  to  take  you  by 
storm  with  the  grip  of  an  almighty  force  ?  He  has 
no  other  might  with  which  to  win  you  but  the  power 
of  loving.  But  that  suffering  love  is  His  omnipo- 
tence.    It  is  the  final,  irresistible  thing. 

Are  there  some  who  see  this  love,  but  fear  to  step 
into  the  great  friendship  to  which  it  calls  us ;  fear  the 
change,  fear  the  righting  of  the  wrong,  perhaps ;  fear 
the  service  to  which  it  calls ;  fear  the  new  life 
because  of  some  weakness  which  like  an  old  wound 
may  find  us  out  and  bring  us  down  in  shame?  A 
Mohammedan  once  put  the  difficulty  thus,  "Jesus 
of  Nazareth  invites  me,  but  I  need  the  power 
to  live  in  His  world."  It  is  good  if  you  fear  it, 
for  it  means  that  you  take  it  seriously.  No  man 
has  seen  the  love  of  Christ  who  has  not  seen  its 
terrible  relentlessness  toward  selfishness  and  sin. 
There  was  no  fear  in  Zaccheus.     He  was  confident 


10 


146  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

that  he  was  going  to  be  able  to  live  in  this  new 
world.  And  why  ?  Because  he  knew  that  this  Friend 
was  with  him.  In  His  presence  he  felt,  as  Paul 
felt,  equal  to  anything,  and  he  knew  that  in  this 
friendship  he  had  found  something  which  was  eternal. 
That  makes  all  the  difference.  The  friendship  of 
Christ  is  no  fairy  light  which  shoots  up  in  our  souls 
for  a  moment  and  is  gone,  leaving  life  darker  than 
before,  luring  us  into  a  world  in  which  it  is  impossible 
to  live.  His  love  is  the  revelation  of  the  abiding 
reality,  the  final  fact  of  the  universe.  In  His  love, 
there  is  the  power  of  infinite  victory  so  long  as  we 
keep  bringing  our  lives,  with  their  temptation  and 
difficulty,  ever  and  again  into  His  presence  and  open 
to  the  searching  and  the  guiding  of  His  love. 

Perhaps  we  made  an  acquaintance  once  with  an 
interesting  and  clever  person — a  man,  it  may  be, 
with  a  fine  mind  and  a  high  outlook.  For  the 
moment  our  life  was  quickened  and  lit  with  glorious 
possibility  as  by  a  beam  of  sunlight  in  a  cloudy 
day.  But  the  stranger  passed  on  his  way,  leaving 
only  a  lingering  trail  of  brightness  in  the  memory. 
Jesus  Christ  abides.  That  friendship  is  eternal.  The 
love  that  brings  us  into  the  Kingdom  can  keep  us 
there.  The  Friend  who  lifts  us  into  His  world  can 
give  us  power  to  live  in  it. 

One  Friend  in  thy  path  shall  be 
To  secure  thy  step  from  wrong, 
One  to  count  night  day  for  thee 
Patient  through  the  watches  long, 
Serving  most  with  none  to  see. 

His  name  is  Jesus.  Will  you  trust  that  Friend? 
To-day  He  says,  "  I  would  fain  abide  at  thy  house." 
Answer  Him,  "  Even  so;  come,  Lord  Jesus  ?  " 


MASTERLESS  MEN 

**  And  about  the  eleventh  hour  He  went  out,  and  found  others  stand- 
ing idle,  and  saith  unto  them.  Why  stand  ye  here  all  the  day  idle? 
They  say  unto  Him,  Because  no  man  hath  hired  us." — Matt.  xx.  6. 

It  is  a  standing  rule  with  the  parables  of  Jesus  that 
we  must  not  stretch  their  meaning  beyond  the  point 
they  were  meant  to  illustrate.  Yet  such  was  the 
genius  of  Christ  that  there  is  hardly  a  parable  of  His 
but  in  phrase  after  phrase  illuminates  with  unerring 
insight  some  tract  of  life  and  shows  us  how  it  looks 
under  the  light  of  God.  This  Parable  of  the  Vine- 
yard is  a  case  in  point.  It  was  meant  to  set  forth  how 
God  rewards  our  work,  not  according  to  the  surface 
measure  of  its  amount,  but  according  to  the  secret 
standards  of  grace,  taking  into  consideration  all  sorts 
of  things,  which 

the  world's  coarse  thumb 
And  finger  failed  to  plumb, 
So  passed  in  making  up  the  main  account. 

Yet   as   Christ    passes  on   to  this   conclusion,  He 

illuminates,    by   the    way,   what   must    be   to-day   a 

burning  question  for  every   honest    Christian    mind. 

It  is  the  great  number  of  those  who  stand  outside 

the  Kingdom  of  Christ  who  have   never  been   won 

by  Christ  or  by  any  great  spiritual  loyalty.     Make 

Df  it  what  we  will,  these  people  form  a  large  and 

147 


148  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

increasing  section  of  our  population  to-day.  They 
own  no  ideal,  though  they  may  have  one  which  they 
serve  unconsciously,  and  they  stand  aloof  from  Christ 
in  a  bitter  hostility  or  a  tragic  indifference.  In 
feudal  days  most  of  the  men  of  the  country  were 
attached  to  the  great  barons  to  whom  they  had  sworn 
their  service  in  return  for  certain  rights.  But  there 
was  always  a  number  who  had  no  such  allegiance — 
masterless  men  they  were  called.  They  roved  here 
and  there  at  their  own  free  will,  doing  what  they 
liked,  attaching  themselves  to  this  or  that  master  for 
a  time,  as  expediency  demanded.  Countless  people 
to-day  from  the  spiritual  point  of  view  might  be 
described  as  masterless  men.  They  may  dabble  in 
theosophy,  or  have  an  interest  in  spiritualism  or  other 
forms  of  the  occult.  They  may  have  a  few  cut-and- 
dry  formulas  by  which  they  claim  to  rule  their  lives, 
such  as  doing  the  best  they  can  and  letting  the 
future  take  care  of  itself;  or,  as  one  prominent  man 
described  his — getting  as  much  happiness  out  of 
life  as  he  could  without  interfering  too  much  with 
the  happiness  of  other  people.  But  for  the  most 
part  there  is  no  fixed  light  within,  no  definite 
ideal,  and,  above  all,  no  sense  of  a  leader  in  life's 
journey,  a  captain  in  the  fight.  They  are  master- 
less men. 

This  fact  explains  many  of  the  sinister  things  in 
the  public  and  private  life  of  to-day.  Why  do  many 
people  begin  to  drift  downward  when  home  ties  are 
broken  ?  The  reason  is  they  have  no  inward  loyalty 
of  their  own.  They  have  been  living  upon  second- 
hand inspirations.  Such  virtue  as  they  had,  has  been 
a  dependent  thing  propped  up  by  the  scaffolding  of 
others'  example  or  influence,  and  when  the  ties  were 


MASTERLESS  MEN  149 

broken  the  building  went  down  like  a  house  of  cards. 
This  masterless  condition  is  the  sinister  thing  in  our 
social  and  industrial  life.  The  masterless  man  is 
liable  to  be  caught  by  the  passion  of  the  moment,  to 
become  the  slave  of  a  catchword,  to  follow  the  biggest 
crowd  and  become  the  tool  of  the  mob  spirit.  It  is 
these  masterless  men  who  have  brought  Russia  to 
her  fate  to-day.  When  the  hand  of  the  autocrat  was 
suddenly  cast  off,  they  found  their  opportunity  before 
the  mass  of  the  people  had  time  to  think  things  out, 
and  for  the  moment  they  are  giving  the  land  over  to 
pillage  and  massacre.  It  is  the  masterless  men  who 
are  the  standing  danger  of  every  democracy. 

Why  is  it  that  after  so  many  years  of  enlighten- 
ment and  especially  of  Christian  teaching,  so  many 
have  not  been  won  for  any  definite  Christian  ideal  ? 
Why  is  it  that  Christ  has  not  got  them  ?  Why  do 
they  still  stand  outside  the  Kingdom  and  defy 
Christ,  or  at  least  ignore  Him?  That  is  the  question 
which  the  parable  asks.  The  answer  is  striking; 
it  sends  a  shaft  of  light  into  a  very  dark  place 
and  brings  us  face  to  face  with  one  or  two  salutary 
truths.  "  They  say  unto  Him,  Because  no  man  hath 
hired  us." 

One  thing  is  clear.  The  reason  does  not  lie  in 
the  nature  of  the  men  themselves.  These  men 
outside  the  vineyard  were  all  men  who  might 
have  been  inside,  if  only  they  had  been  asked. 
They  would  have  been  valuable.  They  had  it  in 
them.  Christ  gives  no  colour  to  any  idea  that  some 
people  are  by  nature  capable  of  appreciating  His 
message  and  being  won  by  His  appeal,  and  others 
are  not.  No  man  is  exiled  from  God  by  any  dis- 
qualification of  nature.     The  truth  lies  all  the  other 


I50  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

way.  As  John  Masefield  puts  it  on  the  lips  of  the 
Widow  in  the  Bye  Street  speaking  a  last  word  to  her 
prodigal  son : 

God  dropped  a  spark  down  into  every  one, 

And  if  we  find  and  fan  it  to  a  blaze 
It'll  spring  up  and  glow  like — like  the  sun, 

And  light  the  wandering  out  of  stony  ways. 

No  one  can  fail  to  feel  that  there  is  a  vast  amount 
of  splendid  human  material  going  to  waste,  because 
it  has  not  been  captured  for  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Who  can  read  of  the  kind  of  manhood  revealed  by 
war,  its  heroism,  its  sacrifice,  its  amazing  loyalty, 
without  feeling  cut  to  the  heart  that  so  many  of 
these  have  not  been  won  for  Christ?  It  is  not 
enough  to  say  that  it  is  sin  which  keeps  so  many  out. 
That  is  merely  to  evade  the  point.  For  much  of  the 
sin  that  shocks  and  saddens  us,  is  but  the  result  of 
this  masterless  condition.  It  comes  from  an  empty 
mind,  an  untenanted  soul,  which  inevitably  goes 
to  ruin  like  an  unoccupied  house.  There  are  sins 
whose  very  strength  is  drawn  from  fine  loyalties 
which  should  have  been  Christ's,  but  have  been 
captured  by  the  seven  devils.  Why  stand  they  all 
the  day  idle  ?  Let  us  face  the  answer :  ''  Because  no 
man  hath  hired  us." 

The  first  conclusion  which  suggests  itself  is  that 
they  have  never  had  the  call.  This  is  the  simplest 
answer.  May  it  not  be  true?  How  little  there  is  of 
the  spiritual  note,  let  alone  the  definitely  Christian 
note,  in  the  appeals  made  to  the  masses  and  classes 
in  our  country  by  many  of  our  leaders.  A  little 
reflection  will  remind  us.  The  note  of  patriotism 
has   been  sounded  often  enough   during   these   last 


MASTERLESS  MEN  151 

years,  and  the  appeal  to  fear.  Many  of  our  leaders 
show  little  trust  in  the  power  of  anything  deeper 
than  these,  when  they  address  the  people  in  a  crisis. 
Indeed  it  is  often  an  even  more  selfish  chord  which 
is  struck — the  appeal  to  personal  advantage,  to  the 
pocket,  to  mere  selfishness,  and  settlements  have  been 
grudgingly  made  on  that  basis  and  the  crisis  just 
tided  over,  when  a  deeper  appeal — the  appeal  to  the 
highest — might  have  awakened  an  overwhelming 
response.  I  do  not  stay  to  ask  the  reason  why  this 
lower  note  is  so  persistently  sounded.  It  betrays  a 
lack  of  faith  in  goodness  which  is  a  confession  of 
spiritual  bankruptcy ;  or  a  cynical  measure  of  man's 
nature  which  is  a  denial  of  the  vision  of  Jesus.  One 
cannot  help  feeling  that  masses  of  our  people  are 
derelict  to-day  because  they  have  never  been  reached 
by  any  breath  of  higher  inspiration.  We  have  not 
got  them  for  the  highest,  because  we  have  systemati- 
cally approached  them  on  the  lower  side  of  their 
nature.     No  man  hath  hired  them. 

Or  think  of  Christian  preaching.  One  would 
imagine  there  had  been  plenty  of  that,  and  there  are 
many  who  tell  us  cynically  that  there  is  too  much  of 
it.  But  is  this  true  ?  How  many  thousands  are  there 
who  pass  our  church  doors  without  the  faintest  idea 
of  what  the  Church  stands  for,  and  what  the  message 
of  the  evangel  really  is,  because  they  have  never 
heard  it?  They  hardly  know  the  name  of  Christ, 
except  as  an  echo  from  a  distant  Sunday  School. 
As  a  writer  says :  "  The  tragic  thing  is  not  that  men 
knowing  what  Christianity  is,  will  reject  it.  It  is  that 
not  knowing  what  it  is,  they  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it."  There  is  abundant  ground  for  asking  our- 
selves, whether  the  Church  of  to-day  is  not  failing  in 


152  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

the  mission  of  the  evangel  toward  large  masses  of 
our  people.  If  they  will  not  come  to  us,  we  must 
go  to  them.  What  we  need  to-day  is  a  gigantic 
Crusade,  a  new  and  widespread  proclamation  of  the 
evangel.  Why  is  it  that  we  do  not  have  it?  Is  it 
that  we  are  losing  the  evangelical  note,  the  authentic 
note  of  the  gospel  ?  Has  the  gift  of  Christ  to  our- 
selves lost  its  wonder  and  its  power?  Have  we  lost 
the  passion  for  souls?  Are  we  losing  sight  of  the 
tragedy  of  sin?  Is  the  inward  fire  dying  down? 
We  cannot  all  be  preachers,  but  do  we  not  need  to 
follow  Christ  in  so  loving  men  that  we  shall  love  them 
into  the  Kingdom,  seeking  doors  of  friendship  and 
social  fellowship  through  which  we  shall  be  ready  to 
enter  with  a  message  ?  Surely  the  Kingdom  of  God 
is  something  to  talk  about  when  the  way  is  open — 
far  more  worth  talking  about  than  the  thousand  and 
one  topics  of  ordinary  conversation.  Above  all,  the 
way  is  clear  to-day  for  a  great  campaign  up  and 
down  the  land ;  for  a  combined  assault  upon  the 
strongholds  of  sin  and  unbelief  in  the  name  of  Christ. 
There  are  signs  that  we  are  beginning  to  realize  it. 
The  world  is  waiting  for  it  with  a  pathetic  wistful- 
ness.  It  is  watching  for  some  message,  like  those 
who  look  for  the  dawn  after  a  night  of  weariness  and 
futile  wandering. 

But  there  is  more.  We  need  the  authentic  note  in 
our  Christian  lives,  I  speak  to  Christian  people. 
Has  there  been  any  appeal  in  our  lives  for  Christ, 
anything  that  would  strike  through  the  crust  of  in- 
difference and  make  men  wonder?  If  we  were  to 
ask  some  of  those  who  stand  outside,  would  they  not 
be  apt  to  reply  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  lives  of 
many  Christian   people    which  really  attracts  them, 


MASTERLESS  MEN  153 

nothing  extraordinary,  nothing  which  speaks  of  God. 
It  is  a  common  claim  by  many  who  stand  outside 
that  their  lives  are  just  as  full  of  Christian  quality  as 
the  lives  of  most  Christian  people.      We  need   not 
stay  to  argue  the  point   or    to   discover  the   secret 
source  of  what  the  Spectator  calls  "  godless  goodness." 
AC  goodness  is  of  God,  though  it  may  not  be  con- 
scious of  God.     But  surely  in  this  claim  there  is  the 
demand  that  somehow  there  ought  to  be  a  difference 
in  our  goodness,  some  lustrous  quality  which  is  able 
to   reveal    to   men's   dull    minds   the   face    of    God. 
Walter  Pater,  in  one  of  his  books,  tells  of  a  Roman 
lad  who  was  attracted  to  a  young  Roman  soldier  of 
his  chance  acquaintance  because  of  a  certain  some- 
thing  in    his    life   which    drew   him    strangely   and 
touched    a   deep   chord    in   his   soul.      He   found    it 
difficult  to  explain.     It  was  like  a  fragrance,  a  delicate 
perfume.     It  was  like  the  shining  of  a  very  beautiful 
light.       It    touched    and    moved   his  very  soul.      It 
made  him  wonder.      As  they  drew  close  together  he 
asked   what  it  was,  and   he  found  that  this  soldier 
lad  was  a  Christian  and  bit  by  bit,  in  spite  of  his 
superstition,  he  was  drawn  toward  Christ — drawn  by 
that  accent  of  Christian  character  which  called  to  him 
as  deep  calls  to  deep.     Is  there  that  accent  in  our  lives 
which    makes   men  wonder,  that  gleam    of  a  better 
country  which  lays  them  open  to  the  appeal  of  Christ  ? 
Or  is  our  Christianity  a  mere  convention,  a  system  of 
negations,  mere  criticism  of   other    men's  pleasures, 
and  not  the  welcome  to  a  fellowship  and  a  service 
in  which   to  find    life  completed   and  glorified  with 
richer  meaning  and  joy.     What  we  need  to-day  is  to 
stop  living  on  an  old  tradition  of  what  it  means  to  be 
a  Christian.     We  need  to  rediscover  Christ  for  to-day 


154  THE  VICTORY   OF  GOD 

and  to  recover  Christianity  out  of  the  mass  of  tradi- 
tions and  conventions  which  have  hidden  its  real 
nature.  There  was  a  time  when  it  meant  going  into 
a  monastery  and  shutting  oneself  off  from  many  fine 
and  noble  things,  because  that  was  the  only  effective 
protest  which  men  who  wanted  to  live  for  Christ  could 
make  against  the  profligacy  and  sin  of  their  age ;  but 
it  does  not  mean  that  to-day.  There  was  a  time 
when  it  meant  going  out  to  the  hills  to  worship,  and 
being  hunted  and  harried  for  the  sake  of  spiritual 
freedom  ;  but  it  does  not  mean  that  to-day.  We 
have  got  to  find  out  what  it  means  to  be  a  Christian 
man  or  woman  in  this  age  in  which  we  live,  with  all 
our  pressing  problems.  What  kind  of  men  would 
Christ  have  us  to  be  to-day  ?  What  kind  of  life  does 
He  demand?  That  is  what  we  have  to  discover. 
We  can  be  sure  it  is  something  so  strong,  so  fine,  so 
heroic,  so  tender,  that  it  would  win  hundreds  of  those 
who  stand  aloof  because  they  have  never  been 
touched  by  the  note  of  the  authentic  Christian  spirit 
— the  note  that  sings  like  music  and  challenges  like 
a  battle  cry.  "Why  stand  they  all  the  day  idle? 
Because  no  man  hath  hired  them." 

But  there  are  those  who  have  never  been  won  for 
Christ,  because  they  have  not  realized  there  was 
anything  they  could  do  in  the  vineyard.  Perhaps 
they  did  not  know  the  Kingdom  of  God,  into  which 
He  was  calling  them,  was  a  vineyard.  They  had 
imagined  perhaps,  it  was  only  a  fold,  a  place  of 
shelter  from  the  storms  of  life.  It  is  quite  true  that 
is  a  picture  Christ  gives  of  the  Kingdom.  The 
picture  of  the  Good  Shepherd  and  the  sheep,  has 
many  tender  and  welcome  suggestions.  It  speaks 
of  rest   and   peace,   of    pleasant   pastures   and   still 


MASTERLESS  MEN  155 

waters ;  and  when  the  soul  is  storm-beaten  and 
weary  with  the  struggle  of  life,  or  torn  and  bleed- 
ing in  the  thickets  of  perplexing  temptations,  that 
is  an  infinitely  comforting  picture  which  reveals  the 
Shepherd  who  folds  us  safely  in  His  keeping  and 
binds  up  the  wounded  and  broken-hearted.  But  it 
is  not  the  whole  truth  of  the  gospel.  There  is  a  way 
of  reading  Christ's  message  so  as  to  suggest  that  He 
came  into  the  world  to  lead  a  host  of  spiritual  cripples 
safely  to  a  better  land.  We  have  to  take  other 
pictures  if  we  are  to  have  it  complete.  He  is  a  leader 
of  infinite  variety  of  appeal.  And  His  call  is  not 
always  to  the  softer  side  of  our  nature,  to  its  invalid- 
ism and  its  fears.  He  appeals  to  our  strength.  The 
Kingdom  is  a  vineyard,  a  place  of  work,  a  field  of 
battle.  He  is  a  Master  who  has  made  a  world  in 
which  He  wants  things  done,  wants  it  redeemed  from 
waste  and  wildness,  built  up,  made  perfect.  "  Why 
stand  ye  here  all  the  day  idle? " 

Professor  Gilbert  Murray,  discussing  in  a  pamphlet 
what  it  was  that  sent  so  many  of  our  young  men 
out  to  the  front  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and 
sent  them  so  gaily,  so  buoyantly,  gives  this  answer : 
that  for  the  average  man  to  find  something  to  do 
which  he  can  do,  and  spend  his  whole  life  in  doing, 
is  the  secret  of  a  very  high  happiness.  Christ  holds 
the  key  to  that  happiness.  The  final  secret  of  a 
satisfying  life  is  in  Jesus.  He  wants  something  done 
which  we  can  all  do,  and  into  which  we  can  put  every 
ounce  of  our  being.  He  wants  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
the  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  purity  and  love 
brought  into  being  by  us.  And  the  Kingdom  can  be 
realized  in  and  through  the  relationships  of  ordinary 
life,  and   the  work  and   business  of  ordinary  days. 


IS6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

That  is  where  many  people  miss  the  point  of  Christi- 
anity. Religion  is  not  a  special  compartment  of  our 
activities.  Religion  is  life  taken  up  into  the  fellow- 
ship of  God.  Christianity  demands  no  special  gifts. 
The  qualities  that  make  a  man  a  good  husband,  a 
good  father,  a  faithful  workman,  an  honest  merchant, 
a  true  friend,  are  the  qualities  which  equip  us  for 
the  service  of  God.  There  are,  of  course,  special 
means  which  have  to  be  used  for  bringing  in  the 
Kingdom.  There  is  special  work  that  wants  doing 
— work  among  the  children,  for  instance — and  it 
needs  the  best  men  and  women  to  do  it.  There  is 
no  finer  soil  for  growing  the  seed  of  the  Kingdom, 
than  the  mass  of  young  life  which  is  rising  all  around 
us.  The  hope  of  the  new  world  lies  there,  at  what 
George  Meredith  calls  "  the  malleable  moment."  And 
there  is  the  work  of  preaching,  which  is  all  the  more 
needed  if  it  have  fallen  into  something  of  disfavour. 
Or  look  farther  afield,  and  what  of  the  task  of  the 
Christian  evangel  in  foreign  lands,  where  great 
multitudes  are  reaching  undreamed-of  power  without 
the  faith  to  direct  it  for  the  good  of  the  world  or 
their  own  ? 

But  that  is  only  a  part  of  the  sphere  of  Christian 
service.  Christ  came  to  inaugurate  a  service  of 
God  which  shall  be  as  wide  as  the  whole  range 
of  healthy  human  activities  and  to  enable  us  to 
go  out  on  the  daily  round,  the  common  task,  and 
capture  these  for  God.  He  bids  us  go  out  and 
build  up  the  Kingdom  all  about  us ;  in  every  home, 
in  every  business ;  to  transform  every  relationship 
with  His  Spirit.  He  says  to  every  man  who  goes 
out  in  the  morning  to  his  task,  "  Go,  work  to-day  in 
My  vineyard."     We  were  told  again  and  again  in  the 


MASTERLESS  MEN  15^ 

days  of  war,  that  all  service  which  is  clean  fs  national 
service.  We  need  that  outlook  in  our  Christian  lives. 
All  service  is  Christian  service  if  it  be  done  for  Him.  * 
The  voice  of  Christ  has  new  urgency  to-day,  when 
the  foundations  of  the  old  world  are  rocking  and  old 
prejudices  are  being  broken  down.  He  is  calling  for 
volunteers  to  step  in  and  claim  this  No  Man's  Land 
for  Him  while  it  is  still  unclaimed. 

Sin  worketh,  let  me  work  too. 
Sin  undoeth,  let  me  do. 
Busy  as  sin,  my  work  I  ply, 
Till  I  rest  in  the  rest  of  eternity. 

Death  worketh,  let  me  work  too. 
Death  undoeth,  let  me  do. 
Busy  as  death  my  work  I  ply, 
Till  I  rest  in  the  rest  of  eternity. 

The  one  vital  question  for  every  man  is  the  question 
how  he  is  going  to  make   his  contribution   to  life 
What  are  we  going  to  put  into  life  to  leave  the  world 
better  than  we  found  it?      There   is   an   idea  that 
progress   is  a  kind  of  stream  which  moves  onward 
and  upward  by  some  secret  tendency  of  good  which 
is  independent  of  ourselves,  and  we   have   only   to 
swim  with  the  stream   to  find   ourselves  farther  on 
The  war  has  killed  that  idea,  let  us  hope,  for  ever^ 
a  stream  can  never  move  upward  of  itself.      God's 
only  way  of  breaking   into   life   is   by  com'ing   into 
our  hearts.      His  only  way  of  moving  the  world  is 
by  moving  men.      The  power  of  all  progress  is  in 
our  wills  given  up  to  work  the  will  of  God  wherever 
we  are  situated.    The  dynamic  of  progress  is  victorious 
personality.     The  greatest  contribution  we  can  make 
to  life  is  just  ourselves,  redeemed  and  vitalized  by  the 


158  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

touch  of  Jesus.  The  Kingdom  grows,  in  the  measure 
in  which  each  one  of  us  individually  lives  in  the 
order  of  sonship  to  God  through  all  life's  traffic  and 
business.  What  kind  of  personality  are  we  carrying 
into  the  world  from  day  to  day  ?  That  is  the  vital 
question.  Stevenson's  biographer  sums  up  his  life 
by  saying,  "  To  do  the  work  he  did  was  a  great 
achievement,  but  to  be  the  man  he  was,  was  an 
achievement  no  less  great."  That  is  the  point. 
Whatever  our  work,  the  manhood  we  reach  is  always 
our  greatest  achievement.  And  the  secret  of  true 
manhood  is  the  mastery  of  Jesus. 

Perhaps  there  are  some  who  stand  idle  to-day 
because  they  have  never  recognized  the  voice  of 
Christ.  The  voice  is  powerless  because  it  is  to  them 
unreal.  At  best  it  is  second-hand  ;  and  a  leader  whose 
personality  never  touches  the  lives  of  his  men  wins  no 
allegiance.  As  Napoleon  put  it,  "  When  I  was  in  my 
prime  I  could  get  thousands  to  follow  me,  but  I  had  to 
be  there!'  It  is  the  personal  touch  that  does  it.  And 
perhaps  you  cannot  feel  that  Christ  comes  near  you 
with  a  personal  touch  upon  your  life.  It  seems  all 
unreal — this  appeal — an  echo  from  distant  centuries 
which  does  not  reach  the  heart  to-day.  But  are  you 
sure  that  you  have  listened  for  it  ?  If  there  is  anything 
in  the  Gospels,  it  is  a  message  of  a  living  Christ — a 
Christ  who  is  with  men — the  same  to-day  as  yesterday, 
in  closer  touch  even  than  when  He  walked  with  His 
disciples  in  Galilee.  The  essence  of  the  resurrection 
is  that  Christ  has  been  liberated  from  the  bonds  of 
space  and  time  to  become  an  ever-present  Master. 

That  is  what  He  meant  when  He  told  the  disciples 
that  He  was  going  away.  "  It  is  expedient  for  you 
that  I  go  away :  for  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Spirit  will 


MASTERLESS  MEN  159 

not  come  unto  you ;  but  if  I  go  away,  I  will  send 
Him  unto  you."  He  meant  this  amazing  thing: 
that  if  He  were  to  be  able  to  be  with  them  always, 
and  with  each  one  of  them.  He  would  have  to  go 
away,  so  that  His  Spirit  might  be  free.  And  they 
learned  afterwards  when  He  was  really  gone,  that  it 
was  true.  Peter  and  John  were  as  sure  that  Christ 
was  with  them  then,  as  when  He  was  with  them  in  / 
the  flesh.  And  He  is  here  to-day.  Time  does  not 
limit  Him.  Space  does  not  confine  Him.  He  is 
here.  Have  you  ever  gone  away  to  listen  for  His 
voice,  to  give  Him  a  chance  to  meet  you  ?  In  the 
midst  of  the  cannon  roar  the  larks  were  singing,  but 
you  could  not  hear  them  till  you  trained  your  ear 
and  listened  in  the  intervals  for  the  sweet  shrill  note. 
Have  we  ever  gone  away  to  listen  for  the  spiritual 
voice  of  Christ  ?  Have  we  ever  cultivated  that  inner 
ear  "which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude,"  with  which 
Wordsworth  listened  to  the  voice  of  nature  ?  How 
does  Christ  speak  to-day  ?  Not  by  a  voice  we  can 
hear  with  the  outward  ear,  though  some  have  claimed 
to  hear  Him  speak  as  vividly  as  the  speech  of  a 
friend  at  their  elbow.  There  was  Paul,  for  instance, 
and  St.  Francis,  and  Joan  of  Arc  who  died  rather 
than  disown  the  voices  she  was  sure  were  divine 
These  heard  it  so,  because  their  spiritual  natures  were 
keyed  up  to  a  pitch  at  which  spiritual  voices  become 
more  real  than  earthly  realities  and  spiritual  visions 
more  vivid  than  the  light  of  day. 

How  does  Christ  speak?  He  speaks  within,  in 
the  shame  that  touches  conscience,  in  the  remorse 
that  follows  sin,  in  the  ideals  which  attract  us  like 
the  stars,  in  the  great  words  of  truth  which  once  fell 
from  His  lips  and  which  to-day  strike  home  to  our 


i6o  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

souls  with  an  authority  and  power  we  cannot  deny. 
He  speaks  in  the  wrongs  that  touch  our  chivalry,  in  the 
causes  which  call  for  our  help,  in  the  broken-hearted 
whom  we  long  to  heal.     He  speaks  in  the  desperate 
longing  for  a  higher  life  and  a  finer  world  to  live  in 
—a  world  which  calls  to  us  to-day  from  the  very 
horror  and  ruin  of  our  war-worn  earth.     How  is  it 
that   these  things  awaken   in   us  such   feelings  and 
make  such  appeals  ?     Why  is  it  that  these  impulses 
haunt  us  so  that  we  cannot  get  rid  of  them  ?     Read 
the  New  Testament  and  you  will  find  them   incar- 
nate in  Christ,  so  that  the  more  you  think  of  Him 
the  stronger  do  they  become.     And  when  you  give 
yourself  up  to  them  there  will  steal  in  upon  you  the 
feeling  that  He  is  with  you,  a  Comrade,  a  Friend. 
And  that   feeling  will    deepen  into   knowledge   and 
conviction.     It  is  this  fellowship  with  a  present  Christ 
which  keeps  Christianity  alive.     It  is  a  message  ever 
renewed  to   us  by  One  who   speaks  from  heart  to 
heart,  and  who  is  Himself  "the  Way,  the  Truth,  and 
the  Life."      To  listen  for  that  message  is  to  feel  a 
new  life  taking  possession  of  our  nature  and  rising 
within  us — a  life  which  He  begins  to  live  in  us  and 
we  begin  to  live  through  Him, 


THE   MYSTERY   OF  TEMPTATION 

•Lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from  evil."— Matt. 


^1.  13- 


It  is  not  surprising  that  in  His  great  prayer  Christ 
should  have   included   a  petition   about   temptation. 
«  No  man,"  says  William  James,  "  has  matriculated  in 
the  university  of  life  till  he  has  been  well  tempted." 
We  do  not  go  very  far  along  the  road  before  we  are 
faced  with  suggestions  of  evil  which  make  appeal  to 
something  in  our  nature.     It  is  part  of  the  genius  of 
the  Bible,  born  of  a  sure  insight  into  life,  and  won  out 
of  sad  experience,  that  the  first  thing  that  happens 
tc  a  man  when  he  steps  upon  the  stage  of  the  world 
is  a  great  temptation.     The  peace  of  the  Eden  garden 
is  broken  by  the  insinuating  serpent  with  his  subtle 
suggestion  to  sin.     That  is  one  of  the  best  pictures 
of  t'^emptation  in  all  literature.     All  the  elements  of 
temptation  are  there— the  call  of  appetite,  the  appeal 
to  curiosity,  the  deceitful  glamour  with  which  we  are 
self-blinded  to  the  nature  of  evil.     Put  a  man  where 
you  will,  you  cannot  shut  out  the  voice  of  temptation. 
Make  his  circumstances  as  favourable  to  purity  and 
goodness    as   they   can  be   made,  he  cannot   escape 
the  choice  which  is  our  peril.     The  voice  which  makes 
the  lower  appeal   may  awake   spontaneously  in  our 
own   souls  in   face  of  the  suggestions  of  the  world 


II 


1 62  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

around  us ;  or  it  may  come  in  the  persuasions  of  some 
real  or  fancied  friend.  Many  a  man  has  been  tempted 
by  the  foolish  fondness  of  those  who  loved  him  best, 
making  it  doubly  hard  for  him  to  resist. 

But  however  it  come,  temptation  is  a  power  to 
be  reckoned  with.  It  is  the  one  thing  a  mother 
fears  for  her  boy  when  he  goes  out  into  the  world. 
She  does  not  fear  open  sin  without  disguise,  for 
that  would  only  disgust  a  fine  nature ;  she  fears 
the  sin  which  comes  in  the  glamour  of  temptation. 
Every  man  has  need  to  treat  his  temptations  with 
respect. 

How  is  it  that  this  force  comes  into  our  life  ?  Why 
has  our  path  been  so  beset  with  these  traps  of  the 
devil's  baiting?  How  did  the  serpent  get  into  the 
garden  ?  It  is  a  great  mystery  and  we  naturally 
expect  from  our  Lord  some  help  in  penetrating  it. 
But  when  we  turn  to  this  prayer,  "  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation,"  we  are  perplexed.  For  the  mystery 
deepens.  The  suggestion  seems  to  be  that  it  is 
God  who  leads  us  into  temptation,  making  the  world 
such  a  place  that  temptation  is  inevitable.  Surely  it 
is  unthinkable  that  the  drunkard  who  goes  down 
before  his  passion,  should  have  been  sent  into  that 
fiery  furnace  by  God  Himself.  Surely  it  cannot  be 
that  God  weaves  this  glamour  about  our  sins  so  that 
they  hypnotize  conscience  into  sleep  and  work  their 
will  upon  us.  If  this  were  so,  it  would  be  little 
wonder  that  some  cry  out  upon  such  a  God  and 
disclaim  responsibility  for  evil. 

Oh,  Thou  who  dost  with  pitfall  and  with  gin 
Beset  the  road  I  have  to  wander  in, 
Thou  wilt  not  with  predestination  round 
Enmesh  me  and  impute  my  fall  to  sin. 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  TEMPTATION      163 

There  is  a  mystery  here  which  adds  to  the  confusion 
of  our  tempted  souls.  We  are  faced  by  a  great 
dilemma.  Is  God  responsible  for  our  temptations? 
Is  it  God  who  sends  us  out  to  meet  them?  If 
it  be  God  who  sends  us  to  meet  them,  then  surely 
there  must  be  something  good  in  temptation;  but 
if  there  be  something  good  in  temptation,  why 
should  Christ  teach  us  to  pray,  "  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation  "  ? 

The  way  to  clear  up  many  of  these  difficulties  is 
very  simple.  It  is  to  get  a  clear  grasp  of  one  fact — 
the  fact  that  there  is  no  sin  in  being  tempted.  "  'Tis 
one  thing  to  be  tempted,  Escalus,  another  thing  to 
fall."  There  is  no  sin  in  temptation  in  itself.  No 
man,  as  Spurgeon  said,  can  keep  the  birds  of  passion 
from  flying  about  his  head ;  the  trouble  is  when  he 
allows  them  to  begin  building  nests  in  his  hair!  The 
sin  is  when  we  begin  to  give  way  to  temptation,  to 
dally  with  it,  to  give  it  a  chance  to  find  a  lodgment 
in  our  thoughts  and  imaginations  till  it  gets  power 
to  master  us  in  the  secret  places  of  our  being. 
There  must  be  many  people  to  whom  that  simple 
thought  will  bring  relief.  You  have  been  meeting  a 
temptation  continually  which  shames  you  even  to 
think  of,  and  you  are  haunted  by  the  suggestion 
that  you  are  more  or  less  of  a  sinner  because  you 
have  it  at  all.  Part  of  its  strength  indeed  may  have 
been  drawn  from  your  own  nature,  because  you  have 
allowed  it  to  master  you  in  the  past,  like  the  camel 
in  the  legend  which  poked  its  nose  into  the  tent,  then 
its  head,  then  its  whole  body,  and  finally  turned  on 
the  man  and  crowded  him  out.  It  may  be  that  the 
evil  thing  has  got  right  inside  and  is  meeting  us 
day  and  night  because  once  we  gave  it  lodgment 


1 64  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

there.  As  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  says,  a  drunkard's 
temptation  may  be  his  punishment.  It  may  come 
to  him  as  the  vengeance  of  life  upon  an  empty 
mind  because  he  has  not  taken  measures  to  keep  his 
nature  in  control.  He  may  have  contracted  the  habit 
whose  grip  upon  him  becomes  his  temptation.  But 
let  us  get  hold  of  the  fact  in  spite  of  this,  that  there 
is  no  sin  in  being  tempted.  Temptation  may  be  a 
consequence  of  sin  ;  it  is  not  the  sin  itself.  The  sin 
is  when  we  consent  to  it  and  give  way  to  it. 

What  then,  is  temptation  ?  There  are  two  parts  in 
it.  There  is  first  of  all  some  impulse  or  suggestion 
which  we  know  to  be  evil.  It  may  come  in  the  voice 
of  our  own  passions,  the  suggestion  of  the  natural 
appetites  and  desires  of  the  body  threatening  to  take 
control.  It  may  come  in  some  suggestion  of  selfish- 
ness, bidding  us  seek  things  for  ourselves  in  defiance 
of  the  needs  and  claims  of  others.  It  may  come  in 
the  voice  of  fear,  the  fear  of  suffering,  or  the  scorn  of 
our  friends  suggesting  to  us  escape  by  a  lower  way 
of  living,  or  by  some  compromise  with  evil. 

But  there  is  another  element  in  temptation.  There 
is  God's  part  in  it — the  voice  of  our  better  self  God 
is  in  every  temptation  challenging  us  to  fight,  warning 
us  that  the  thing  is  wrong.  There  would  be  no 
temptation  if  there  were  no  voice  of  God,  for  we 
would  not  be  conscious  of  any  dilemma.  Some  people 
have  so  suppressed  the  voice  of  God  in  the  inward 
challenge  of  their  souls  that  they  never  hear  it. 
These  people  are  never  really  tempted.  There  is  no 
glint  of  fight  in  them.  They  are  enslaved,  the  bonds- 
men of  vice  and  dishonesty,  whose  sin  has  become 
second  nature.  They  have  given  themselves  over, 
body  and  soul,  to  the  devil — automatic  sinners  whose 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  TEMPTATION      165 

vice  is  as  mechanical  as  a  wound-up  clock.  God 
help  the  man  who  has  sunk  to  that  depth ! 

Temptation  has  God  in  it — His  challenge  to  fight 
the  evil,  His  call  to  build  up  a  character  out  of  the 
crude  passions  and  impulses  with  which  our  nature 
is  equipped,  His  crusade  to  slay  some  dragon  where 
it  steps  across  the  frontiers  of  our  life,  and  challenges 
the  rule  of  some  high  purpose.  God's  appeal  is  to 
choose  the  highest  in  a  world  where  we  are  free  to 
do  either  good  or  evil.  For  our  freedom  is  the  basis 
of  our  temptation.  It  is  because  we  are  free,  we  are 
tempted.  If  there  were  no  freedom,  there  would  be 
no  temptation.  And  without  freedom,  there  would 
be  no  value  in  goodness,  thus  we  cannot  become 
strong  men  without  temptation.  Even  Christ  had 
His  temptations,  which  were  very  real.  His  battle 
was  no  mere  panorama  set  out  for  our  instruction 
like  a  shadow-piece  upon  a  screen.  Some  people 
read  the  Gospels  as  if  the  temptation  scenes  were 
merely  a  play  in  which  Christ  was  acting  a  part. 
But  His  temptations  were  real  because  there  was 
something  He  could  not  be  without  passing  through 
that  fire.  He  had  to  reach  character  as  we  reach  it. 
He  had  to  choose  between  the  higher  and  the  lower 
way,  and  when  the  lower  way  rose  before  Him  it  had 
a  glamour  of  its  own,  drawn  though  it  was  from  His 
pityj  for  men.  He  was  tempted  like  as  we  are,  yet 
without  sin  ;  and  through  that  temptation  He  won 
the  power  to  become  our  spiritual  leader  and  the 
helper  of  all  tempted  men. 

Why  then,  if  temptation  be  the  way  of  strength 
and  the  opportunity  of  our  manhood,  did  Christ  pray, 
"Lead  us  not  into  temptation  "?  Some  temptations 
come  through  our  very  vitality  of  body :  is  a  man  to 


1 66  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

pray  for  a  weak  body  lest  his  vitality  should  break 
out  in  ungovernable  passion  ?  Some  temptations 
come  through  our  friendship :  is  a  man  to  shun  love 
and  all  its  tender  guiding  because  he  may  be  tempted 
to  be  a  shirker,  or  desert  his  post  ?  Some  temptations 
come  through  a  high  position  or  a  great  success :  is 
a  man  to  pray  for  a  humble  position  lest  he  should 
be  tempted  to  pride?  The  answer  lies  on  the  face  of 
the  question.  To  pray  for  a  life  without  temptation 
is  to  pray  for  a  life  that  is  no  life  at  all.  "  I  cannot 
praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue,  unexercised 
and  unbreathed,  that  never  sallies  forth  and  seeks 
her  adversary,  but  slinks  out  of  the  conflict  where 
that  immortal  garland  is  to  be  fought  for,  not  without 
dust  and  heat."  So  wrote  John  Milton  in  words  that 
echo  the  Spirit  of  Christ. 

For  Christ  was  a  man  of  the  open  air.  He  never 
shirked  the  offer  of  life  whatever  it  might  bring. 
And  he  never  expected  His  disciples  to  shirk  life 
because  there  might  be  poison  in  it,  or  shelter  them- 
selves in  a  dug-out  all  their  days  because  there  might 
be  bullets  in  the  air.  The  end  He  was  out  for,  was 
the  will  of  God,  the  life  God  would  have  Him  live. 
It  mattered  not  what  devils  lay  in  the  path  or  what 
siren  voices  might  call.  He  would  go — and  He  would 
have  us  go. 

Why  then  should  He  pray,  "Lead  us  not  into 
temptation"?  The  secret  is  that  this  is  the  expres- 
sion of  a  shudder  in  the  soul  without  which  we  are 
not  safe  from  temptation.  There  is  a  sensitive  plant 
which  shrinks  from  the  most  delicate  contact  and 
shrivels  up  at  the  slightest  approach  of  anything  that 
might  hurt  its  life.  That  is  what  a  man's  soul  ought 
to  be  in  the  face  of  evil  wherever  it  meets  him.     No 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  TEMPT ATKXN      167 

man  is  safe  from  the  contamination  of  evil  without 
that  armour  of  the  sensitive  spirit.  The  Christian 
man  is  a  "  Happy  Warrior"  who  never  shrinks  from 
duty  or  from  life,  or  lets  danger  cast  a  shadow  over 
his  spirit  or  spoil  his  joy,  but  he  goes  into  life  with 
his  soul  on  guard.  Christ  is  not  advocating  in  this 
prayer  the  fear  of  life.  He  is  warning  us  to  be  afraid 
of  sin.  That  fear  is  the  only  fear  which  should  have 
any  real  place  in  a  strong  man's  heart.  That  fear 
Christ  is  seeking  to  set  up  as  a  sentinel  in  our  soul. 
Temptation  is  not  a  thing  to  make  us  shirk  the  way 
of  a  virile  and  vigorous  life ;  but  it  is  not  a  thing  to 
meet  with  a  swagger,  much  less  is  it  a  thing  to  go 
out  to  meet.  The  man  who  deliberately  walks  into 
temptation  which  he  might  avoid,  is  imperilling  his 
soul.  That  is  the  outlook  of  this  prayer.  There  are 
temptations  that  put  an  illegitimate  strain  upon  the 
grace  of  God.  Moral  conflicts  come  to  us  all  in  the 
path  of  life  and  try  us  to  the  very  soul.  But  God 
keep  us  all  from  meeting  these  without  a  certain 
':rembling  and  a  certain  fear  which  will  creep  into 
Dur  prayer,  "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation." 

Christ  does  not,  however,  stop  with  this  clause  of 
the  prayer.  If  it  is  God's  will  that  we  should  go  into 
the  place  of  moral  conflict,  it  is  our  business  to  face 
it.  So  Christ  concentrates  on  the  main  part  of  our 
business,  which  is  the  way  through.  "  Deliver  us 
from  the  evil."  This  petition  in  itself  brings  en- 
couragement. It  means  that  deliverance  is  possible. 
God  never  yet  allowed  any  man  to  be  put  into  a 
position  where  there  was  no  alternative  but  to  sin. 
No  man  was  ever  yet  born  into  the  world,  dark  as 
some  of  its  circumstances  are,  foredoomed  to  moral 
disaster.     There  is  a  limit  to  the  power  of  temptation  ; 


1 68  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

that  limit  is  the  grace  of  God.  What  is  the  way  of 
deHverance?  This  prayer  suggests  it.  It  is  to  be 
delivered  from  the  evil.  And  where  is  the  evil  ?  It 
is  not  in  the  materials  of  our  life — the  tempting 
things.  It  is  in  our  own  wills.  The  wrong  desire 
which  would  make  of  something  in  God's  world  an 
instrument  of  selfishness  or  passion,  is  the  secret  of 
our  temptation.  And  the  way  of  deliverance  is  the 
release  from  the  grip  of  the  base  desire  which  uses 
the  very  strength  of  our  own  nature  and  the  very  gifts 
of  God  to  lead  us  into  the  wilderness. 

And  how  can  we  be  delivered  from  the  base  desire  ? 
The  key  to  desire  is  interest,  and  interest  is  awakened 
by  attention.  The  will  follows  in  the  track  of  the 
wind  of  desire,  as  this  is  awakened  by  the  things  to 
which  we  give  our  mind.  This  is  where  prayer  helps 
us.  Prayer,  in  the  first  place,  is  fixing  our  thoughts 
upon  God.  The  moment  the  mind  is  opened  up 
to  Jesus  Christ  and  kept  open  to  Him,  the  whole 
situation  becomes  victoriously  changed,  His  presence 
fills  the  field  of  our  conscious  mind,  dominates  our 
outlook  and  influences  our  will.  As  Mark  Rutherford 
put  it,  "  Time  and  again  I  have  known  moments  of 
temptation,  when  I  would  have  gone  under,  but  the 
pure,  calm,  heroic  image  of  Christ  confronted  me,  and 
I  succeeded." 

We  can  trace  two  consequences  of  that  Divine 
invasion. 

I.  The  tempting  thing  loses  its  attraction.  The 
spell  is  broken  which  held  our  will  in  its  fatal  hypnotic 
grip.  The  glamour  passes  from  the  evil  thing,  what- 
ever it  be,  as  the  tinselled  glory  of  a  gaudy  room  is 
gone  when  you  let  in  the  daylight  and  all  its 
tawdriness  appears.     The  whole  outlook  is  changed. 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  TEMPTATION      169 

No  man  can  see  sin  in  its  reality  till  he  has  seen  it  in 
the  light  of  Christ,  and  the  moment  he  sees  it  there 
its  ugliness  is  plain.  The  thing  which  makes  us 
shudder  at  sin,  and  on  the  other  hand  draws  us  to 
goodness,  is  no  mystic  influx  of  supernatural  power. 
It  is  the  simple  power  that  comes  from  seeing  things 
as  they  are.  No  man  with  any  of  the  Divine  nature 
left  in  him,  can  see  evil  unmasked  and  not  hate  it. 
Its  power  over  us  is  the  artificial  glamour  which  is 
cast  around  it  by  our  own  insincere  dealing  with 
ourselves,  and  sin's  way  of  blinding  our  eyes. 
William  James  says  that  a  drunkard  never  drinks 
with  the  thought  in  his  own  mind  that  he  is  a 
drunkard.  He  drinks  because  he  is  hot  or  cold,  or 
because  he  is  depressed  or  joyful,  to  help  him  out  of 
his  trouble,  or  to  make  him  a  sociable  being ;  so  his 
mind  weaves  a  fancy  dress  round  the  tempting  thing 
which  conceals  its  real  nature.  The  more  he  realized 
himself  a  drunkard,  James  means,  the  more  he  would 
find  himself  free,  loosed  from  his  bonds  by  the 
sword-edge  of  reality.  Men  go  down  before  a  big 
temptation  because  they  meet  it  only  in  the  stifling 
air  of  their  own  shuttered  souls.  Open  the  windows 
when  you  are  tempted  and  let  in  the  light  of  Christ 
and  the  bracing  breath  of  His  purity !  The  longer 
we  dally  with  the  thought  of  evil,  the  more  it  gets 
a  strangle-hold  upon  us.  The  only  way  to  break  the 
spell  is  by  fleeing  from  it  into  the  presence  of  Christ. 
And  the  method  of  that  saving  flight  is  the  way  of 
prayer. 

2.  This  concentration  on  Christ  delivers  us  from 
evil  by  rallying  in  our  souls  new  reserves  of  moral 
purpose  and  purity.  A  soul-compelling  thought  of 
Christ  has  the  power  to  organize  the  forces  of  our 


170  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

better  nature  for  resistance  to  evil.  Many  things 
increase  the  power  of  our  personality.  A  great 
love  will  do  it,  or  a  great  purpose  which  fires  the 
imagination.  That  is  how  some  weak  men  have 
done  strenuous  work  in  the  world,  and  braved  incred- 
ible hardships  which  would  have  beaten  many  a 
stronger  man.  For  half  his  life  Nelson  was  ailing, 
often  sick,  with  only  one  eye  and  one  arm,  but 
he  was  possessed  by  a  great  patriotism,  and  his 
personality  became  a  fountain  of  marvellous  energy 
and  courage  so  that  he  could  stand  up  to  any  situa- 
tion. But  nothing  can  increase  the  power  of  our 
personality  like  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  He  can  unlock 
the  secret  chambers  of  moral  power.  He  can  awaken 
every  noble  impulse  to  stand  up  against  evil,  and 
bring  all  our  reserves  into  action.  When  a  man 
prays  this  prayer  he  brings  Christ  into  his  life,  and 
at  His  touch  all  his  better  nature  is  quickened. 

There  is  an  incident  in  John  Inglesant  which 
illustrates  this  great  deliverance.  He  found  himself 
shut  up  with  a  great  temptation  through  the  scheming 
of  an  enemy.  A  poisonous  mist  seemed  to  fill  the 
air  and  deaden  all  finer  feeling,  when  suddenly  there 
came  a  rustling  breeze  which  seemed  to  him  like  a 
whisper  of  heaven  reminding  him  of  his  better  self. 
Memory  began  to  awake.  The  life  of  other  days 
streamed  back  into  his  mind,  "the  sacramental 
Sundays,  the  repeated  vows,"  the  light  of  heaven  he 
had  once  seen,  the  chapel  at  home.  Under  the 
power  of  such  thoughts  "  the  reason  and  affections 
rallied  together,  and,  trained  into  efficiency  by  past 
discipline,  regained  the  mastery."  He  was  like  the 
demon-haunted  child  in  the  gospel  story,  and,  as  in 
that  story,  the  demon  was  expelled.     The  writer  of 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  TEMPTATION      171 

the  novel  writes  down  the  conclusion.  "  It  is  not  so 
easy  to  ruin  him  with  whom  the  touch  of  Christ  still 
lingers  in  the  palm."  All  this  has  happened  to 
countless  souls  and  can  happen  again  to  any  man 
who,  in  the  evil  hour,  will  lift  his  soul  into  the 
presence   of  God   and   pray,  ''Deliver  us  from   the 

evil." 

But  one  thing  we  must  be  clear  about.  We  cannot 
expect  the  Divine  deliverance  save  as  we  are  yielding 
life  up  to  the  Divine  purpose.  There  are  people  who, 
in  their  better  moments  when  sin  comes  back  to 
take  its  toll  of  remorse,  loathe  the  evil  which  laid 
them  low,  and  long  to  be  free  from  it.  They  give 
themselves  to  prayer,  but  all  seems  unavailing. 
Again  and  again  some  ugly  passion  returns.  They 
spend  their  days  in  alternate  defeat  and  poignant 
regret  till,  it  may  be,  they  give  up  praying  altogether 
and  surrender  themselves  to  a  lower  way  of  living  at 
the  expense  of  a  deadened  conscience.  The  secret  of 
their  failure  is  clear.  They  are  not  wholly  surrendered 
to  the  purpose  of  God.  They  do  not  pray,  "  Thy  will 
be  done,"  and  "Thy  kingdom  come"  at  the  same  time 
as  they  pray,  "  Deliver  us  from  the  evil."  They  are 
really  seeking  to  exploit  the  resources  of  God  in  the 
interests  of  a  selfish  life.  They  merely  want  a  self- 
respect  which  will  enable  them  to  be  just  in  their  own 
eyes  and  hold  up  their  heads  before  the  accusing 
voice  of  their  own  souls.  It  is  not  righteousness  they 
are  after,  but  only  self-righteousness.  They  are  not 
asking  to  be  made  strong  and  clean  for  the  sake  of 
the  Kingdom,  but  only  for  the  sake  of  their  own 
health  or  reputation.  There  is  only  one  way  to  a 
great  salvation,  only  one  way  in  which  we  can  be 
delivered  from  evil.     It  is  by  losing  all  thought  of 


172  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

self  in  seeking  the  purpose  of  Jesus.  God  mends  no 
lives  for  people  to  further  their  own  ends.  We  must 
learn  to  pray  the  whole  Lord's  Prayer  and  live  in  the 
spirit  of  it,  before  we  can  expect  any  one  of  its 
petitions  to  be  answered.  Only  in  the  channels  of 
Christ's  great  service  can  our  nature  find  escape  from 
evil,  by  being  delivered  into  goodness.  Victory  over 
sin  is  a  by-product  of  the  life  which  is  caught  up 
into  Christ's  great  love.  Seeking  to  help  others  we 
find  deliverance  for  ourselves.  Flinging  ourselves 
into  Christ's  crusade  against  evil,  we  escape  from  the 
power  of  it.  The  strength  which  wrecks  men  in 
passion  becomes  the  means  of  life's  power  and 
enrichment,  when  the  will  is  harnessed  to  Christ's 
tasks.  His  recipe  for  victory  over  passion  is  the 
same  as  for  victory  over  fear  and  care,  "  Seek  ye  first 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you." 


THE  DUTY  OF  HOLDING  TOGETHER 

"And  as  the  shipmen  were  about  to  flee  out  of  the  ship,  when  they 
had  let  down  the  boat  into  the  sea,  Paul  said  to  the  centurion  and  to 
the  soldiers,  Except  these  abide  in  the  ship,  ye  cannot  be  saved." — 
Acts  xxvii.  30,  31. 

In  short  compass,  this  is  one  of  the  most  fascinating 

of  sea   stories.      It   is   the   only  place  in  the  Bible 

where  the  seamanship  of  those  days  is  described  in 

detail.    The  story  has  the  note  of  personal  experience. 

It  had  evidently  made  an  indelible  mark  on  the  man 

who  wrote  it.     We  can  see  the  desperate  efforts  of 

the  crew  to  avert  disaster.     We  can  hear  the  rush 

and  roar  of  the  tempest.     We  can  picture  the  wild 

confusion   and  panic,  and  the  dastardly  attempt   of 

the  sailors   to  save  their  own   skins  and   leave   the 

ship  and  passengers  to  their  fate.     The  traditions  of 

seamanship  have  changed  since  then — our  own  nation 

has  led  the  way.     The  story  of  our  mercantile  marine 

in  the  years  of  war  is  a  record  of  selfless  devotion 

which  will  never  die.    It  is  a  sailor's  business — and 

he  never  dreams  now  of  anything  else — to  stand  by 

the  ship  till  the  whole  company  is  safe.     That  is  the 

heroic  law  of  the  sea. 

This  story  has  several  suggestive  things  to  say  to 

us  who  live  on  land,  as  well  as  to  those  who  go  down 

to  the  sea  in  ships.     It  has  very  interesting  parallels 

with  our  life — with  our  present  situation.     A  ship  is 

like  a  State.     It  is  a  little  republic,  a  miniature  nation. 

173 


174  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

It  is  a  self-contained  community  with  its  own  laws 
and  regulations.  Every  member  of  the  company  is 
responsible  to  some  extent  for  the  safety  of  the  whole 
ship  on  her  voyage  from  port  to  port.  The  parallel 
teems  with  suggestions  for  our  life  together.  We 
frequently  speak  of  the  "  ship  of  State."  "  The  ocean 
of  life  "  is  a  hackneyed  phrase  which  lives  because  of 
its  truth. 

And  the  paramount  duty  that  faces  a  ship's  company 
is  to  hold  together.  It  is  this  duty  of  which  I  want 
you  to  think — the  social  duty  that  meets  us  on  every 
side  of  life  where  we  come  into  relations  with  one 
another — the  duty  of  co-operative  living  and  co- 
operative service.  Except  we  hold  together,  we 
cannot  be  saved. 

This  duty  becomes  clear  when  we  consider  the 
basis  on  which  we  live  our  life.  Paul  put  it  strongly, 
later  on,  in  connection  with  the  Church.  "  We  are 
members  one  of  another,"  he  said.  The  moment 
a  man  or  woman  comes  into  the  Christian  Church, 
he  is  in  vital  contact  with  others  whose  lives  begin 
to  influence  him,  and  are  in  turn  influenced  by 
him.  No  man  or  woman,  for  instance,  comes  into 
a  worshipping  congregation,  without  bringing  a 
certain  mood  or  spirit  into  the  atmosphere  which 
affects  the  devotion  of  all  the  rest.  Some  people 
will  be  better  because  we  are  in  the  spirit  of  prayer. 
Some  one  is  being  helped  into  a  new  view  of  life  from 
their  very  contact  with  us.  Or  it  may  be  some  one 
will  be  weaker,  poorer,  more  deaf  to  life's  music 
because  our  spirit  is  out  of  tune,  or  because  we  have 
brought  a  cynical  mood  into  the  house  of  God  or 
depressed  the  atmosphere  with  some  chilling  dis- 
couragement— "  for  we  are  members  one  of  another." 


THE  DUTY  OF  HOLDING  TOGETHER    175 

But  our  dependence  upon  one  another  is  not  merely 
a  fact  of  our  religious  intimacy.  It  is  the  basic  fact 
of  life.  We  sometimes  speak  of  an  isolated  in- 
dividual ;  there  is  no  such  person.  You  do  not 
describe  a  man  fully  by  telling  all  that  can  be  seen 
about  his  outward  life;  you  must  know  his  home, 
his  friends,  the  whole  environment  of  his  personal 
relationships.  Our  life  is  a  social  unity  in  which 
we  are  bound  together  below  the  surface,  like  the 
tangled  roots  of  forest  trees.  And  this  dependence 
has  an  even  wider  range  than  our  home-circle  or 
acquaintanceships.  It  takes  in  the  whole  world. 
The  bread  we  eat  was  grown  on  the  plains  of 
America  and  made  by  some  one  we  never  saw.  The 
clothes  we  wear  have  passed  through  countless  hands 
in  a  chain  that  may  stretch  across  the  world.  The 
whole  earth  gathers  about  our  doorstep  to  minister  to 
our  comfort  and  our  pleasure.  The  ship's  company 
did  not  realize  how  close  was  their  dependence,  till 
the  storm  arose  and  Paul  saw  and  pointed  it  out ; 
and  we  never  know  how  deeply  our  lives  are  knit 
together  till  some  industrial  or  national  catastrophe 
disorganizes  our  life.  A  strike  in  a  vital  industry 
brings  the  whole  machine  to  a  standstill  and  homes 
are  fireless  and  there  is  never  a  street  without  women 
and  children  feeling  the  pinch  of  hunger.  One  of 
the  useful  things  which  a  great  trade  stoppage  does 
for  us,  is  to  make  us  think.  Our  temptation  is  not 
to  think  at  all  of  these  things,  till  comfort  is  touched 
and  conscience  awakes  and  we  realize  that  we  belong 
to  a  social  unit  for  whose  welfare  each  one  shares  re- 
sponsibility. The  same  thing  came  home  to  us  during 
the  war,  when  an  assassin's  hand  in  Central  Europe 
struck  at  the  heart  of  the  world  and  made  it  bleed 


176  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

with  a  wound  from  which  it  will  take  years  to 
recover,  and  will  leave  its  scars  for  generations.  The 
world  is  one  big  family.  Every  day  it  is  being  linked 
the  closer.  The  great  inventors  are  still  concentrating 
on  the  problem  of  annihilating  distance  and  making 
the  world  one  neighbourhood.  More  and  more,  com- 
merce and  science  are  making  men  and  nations  like 
a  ship's  company,  who  are  out  together  on  the  same 
voyage.  Everything  is  driving  home  the  conclusion 
that  we  must  hold  together  if  we  are  to  get  through. 

For  this  very  nearness  has  two  great  consequences. 
It  has  its  dangers.  There  is  the  danger  of  friction. 
When  people  become  intimate,  temperaments  may 
clash,  purposes  may  cross,  tempers  may  rise.  It  is 
a  risky  thing  to  make  a  friend.  You  may  raise  a 
devil,  either  in  yourself  or  in  the  person  you  claim 
for  friend.  The  biggest  test  of  character  is  for  two 
people  to  go  and  live  together.  There  is  nothing 
that  can  make  a  heaven  like  home,  and  there  is 
nothing  that  can  make  such  a  hell.  Strikes  cannot 
paralyse  a  nation  except  in  a  complicated  society.  It 
is  our  very  interdependence  that  makes  the  strike  a 
tragic  blow  to  the  life  of  the  community.  It  is  the 
same  with  war.  Three  hundred  years  ago  there  was 
plenty  of  fighting  but  only  on  a  small  scale  and  only 
among  one  or  two  nations.  The  conflagration  was 
easily  limited.  But  modern  war,  by  the  very  nature 
of  our  nearness,  involves  the  whole  world. 

There  are  other  dangers — the  spread  of  disease,  for 
instance.  If  the  practice  of  medicine  had  not  kept 
pace  with  the  growth  of  the  community,  our  very 
nearness  would  induce  diseases  that  would  destroy  the 
world.  And  there  is  a  worse  danger  than  disease — 
there  is  social  sin  and  social  crime.     There  are  sins 


THE  DUTY  OF  HOLDING  TOGETHER    177 

for  which  no  individual  is  responsible,  but  in  which 
all  have  a  share.  Some  people  who  would  scorn  to 
underpay  their  own  workers,  have  shares  in  companies 
where  conditions  are  bad.  Crimes  which  individuals 
would  shudder  to  commit,  are  done  unconsciously  by 
the  community  through  the  system  which  has  so  far 
evolved.  When  the  next  revival  comes,  it  will  come 
like  all  others,  in  a  wave  of  repentance,  but  it  will 
be  not  only  our  own  personal  sins  of  which  we  will 
repent,  when  the  light  of  heaven  floods  our  life;  it 
will  be  the  social  sins  in  which  we  share — the  national 
pride  which  breeds  wars,  the  poverty  we  permit  to 
exist,  the  conditions  we  condone  which  a  live  social 
conscience  would  sweep  away.  No  man  can  find  a 
real  peace  with  God  for  his  own  soul,  without  facing 
the  social  sins  in  which  he  shares.  For  "we  are 
members  one  of  another." 

But  this  life  together  has  its  own  opportunities. 
Toil  can  be  lightened  for  thousands  by  the  wise 
action  of  the  community.  Burdens  which  no  single 
individual  can  bear  for  others,  the  community  can 
carry.  There  are  the  poor  who  are  beyond  our 
individual  help,  but  we  can  explore  together  some 
of  the  sources  of  poverty  and  dry  them  up.  There 
will  always  be  room  for  the  good  Samaritan  picking 
up  the  man  by  the  wayside.  Communal  philan- 
thropy, which  sacrifices  that  personal  touch,  will  lose 
almost  more  than  it  gains.  There  is  nothing  that 
can  be  so  soul-destroying  as  a  system  where  the 
human  touch  is  lost ;  but  what  a  good  Samaritan 
to  thousands  the  community  itself  could  be  if  only 
we  held  together  and  realized  our  strength !  There 
are  tremendous  resources  lying  unused  which  will 
only  come  into  play  as  we  get  together.     There  are 


12 


1/8  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

powers  in  our  souls  which  will  never  be  fully  tapped 
till  we  have  learnt  the  fellowship  of  service.  For 
the  strength  of  a  community  is  more  than  the  united 
strength  of  separate  individuals.  Inspirations  awaken 
in  a  common  struggle  which  one  man  alone  can  never 
find.  Union  means  reinforcement  of  individual 
power.  Faith  kindles  faith.  Fellowship  awakens 
enthusiasm.  In  spiritual  arithmetic  two  and  two 
make  more  than  four.  They  make  a  body  with  a 
new  life  which  finds  its  roots  in  God ;  for  Jesus  said, 
"  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  My 
name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them." 

But  if  we  are  to  hold  together,  the  question  at 
once  arises,  what  is  the  condition  on  which  we  can 
so  live  together,  overcoming  the  dangers  and  finding 
the  strength?  We  must  find  the  common  spirit,  the 
spirit  of  fellowship.  We  must  learn  the  secret  of 
combination,  if  life  is  to  be  team-work.  We  need  to 
get  the  spirit  of  the  family;  our  trouble  is  that  we 
have  become  a  family,  and  have  never  caught  the 
family  spirit.  To  take  a  familiar  illustration  from 
the  late  coal  dispute,  the  owners  objected  to  the 
pool  because  they  were  afraid  it  would  lead  to  in- 
efficiency. And  why?  Because  they  could  not 
depend  on  a  loyal  spirit  that  would  make  every 
one  work  together  for  the  good  of  all.  They  may 
have  been  wrong.  We  may  be  called  to  a  great 
adventure  of  faith  in  the  way  of  fellowship,  trusting 
that  when  we  step  out  of  the  chill  air  of  self-interest 
into  the  warm  atmosphere  of  common  service,  depths 
of  unselfishness  will  awaken  that  can  never  be  re- 
vealed in  any  other  way.  For  a  great  faith  is 
created ;  it  has  the  power  to  produce  new  things. 

The  fact  is  clear  that  before  men  can  hold  together 


THE  DUTY  OF  HOLDING  TOGETHER    179 

fully  or  whole-heartedly,  they  must  possess  the 
communal  spirit.  We  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to  the 
fact  that  there  are  people  who  talk  a  great  deal 
about  the  community,  who  show  very  little  real  con- 
cern for  the  community.  We  shall  have  to  get  the 
right  spirit  before  we  shall  get  the  ideal  community. 
That  is  what  many  people  forget.  There  are  idealists 
who  would  make  a  neat  and  tidy  world  with  every- 
thing in  it  arranged — on  paper ;  but  even  if  they  got 
their  Utopia  they  would  find  that  it  would  go  to 
pieces,  as  other  attempts  at  Utopia  have  gone  to 
pieces — for  lack  of  the  spirit  to  work  it.  We  cannot 
get  away  from  the  moral  factor.  Many  people  who 
dream  of  better  conditions  and  a  new  system  to 
make  a  new  world,  forget  that  this  new  world  when 
we  have  it,  will  be  a  very  difficult  place  to  live  in. 
It  will  demand  spiritual  resources  which  at  present 
we  have  not  got.  It  will  demand  tact,  and  temper, 
and  unselfishness,  and  mutual  sacrifice,  which,  as 
things  are,  seem  beyond  us.  We  cannot  run  a 
system  based  on  spiritual  lines  without  a  spiritual 
dynamic.  We  cannot  make  an  ideal  world  by  force, 
any  more  than  we  can  make  any  other  spiritual 
thing  by  force.  Every  beautiful  thing  takes  love  to 
ffiake  it.  We  cannot  create  anything  except  in  the 
measure  in  which  we  put  love  into  it.  A  writer 
describes  the  little  garden  of  his  early  home  which 
his  mother  used  to  keep.  "  She  used  to  say  that 
in  the  growing  of  flowers,  love  was  as  necessary  as 
water.  That  seemed  foolish  to  us.  But  somehow 
when  she  went  away,  flowers  ceased  to  grow  there." 
A  new  world  is  a  new  creation.  It  is  a  creation  of 
the  spiritual  mind.  We  cannot  make  a  new  world 
except  by  the   measure   of  love  we   are  willing  to 


i8o  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

put  into  it.  We  cannot  hold  together  in  a  common 
life  which  shall  be  strong  and  progressive;  on  the 
principles  of  the  class  war ;  or  the  temper  of  social 
superiority,  which  is  the  same  thing  camouflaged. 

Now,  here  the  spiritual  man  comes  in  and  the 
Apostle  displaces  the  mechanical  expert.  His  message 
is  the  vital  message  of  to-day,  for  it  is  the  message 
of  a  love  which  alone  can  make  fellowship.  When 
will  we  come  to  see  it?  We  are  living  in  a  world 
which  God  has  given  us  on  the  condition  that  we 
put  love  into  it,  in  all  our  relations  with  one  another ; 
without  love  it  will  go  to  pieces  in  strife  and  war  and 
social  sins  that  will  turn  life  into  a  civilized  jungle. 
It  is  love  which  has  led  men  out  of  the  jungle  habits 
in  which  they  used  to  live  and  made  them  peaceful 
citizens.  It  is  love  we  need  to  run  the  machinery 
of  this  complicated  modern  world.  Hum.anity  is 
starving  in  every  direction  and  stands  broken  and 
crippled  on  the  march,  for  want  of  the  spirit  of  love 
which  alone  can  hold  us  together.  It  is  no  use 
blaming  the  capitalist  alone.  He  needs  love  brought 
into  his  system,  even  though  it  changes  the  system ; 
but  the  labourist  needs  it  just  as  much.  You  can 
read  pamphlets  of  communist  societies  which  have 
"love"  plastered  all  over  them,  but  the  spirit  that 
oozes  from  every  page  is  the  spirit  of  black  hatred 
of  all  classes  except  one.  No  new  world  can  be 
brought  into  being  by  force,  or  kept  running  by 
force,  without  breaking  to  pieces  in  unspeakable 
disaster.  "Though  I  have  all  gifts,"  wrote  Paul, 
"and  all  power" — be  a  gifted  speaker,  a  clever 
worker,  a  successful  organizer,  a  talented  manager— 
"and  have  not  love.,  it  profiteth  nothing"  for  the 
kind  of  life  God  has  given  us  to  live.     It  is  the  spirit 


THE  DUTY  OF  HOLDING  TOGETHER    i8i 

of  fellowship  which  alone  can  make  men  comrades 
in  a  common  cause,  in  a  common  purpose,  can  bring 
the  ship  to  port.  Except  we  hold  together,  we 
cannot  be  saved. 

What  qualities  does  this  common  life  demand  ? 
There  is  the  spirit  of  sincerity,  of  frank  and  open 
dealing.  Where  love  reigns,  the  black  cloud  of 
suspicion  is  not  allowed  to  gather.  And  there  is  the 
spirit  of  forbearance.  We  must  learn  tolerance  of 
others*  faults.  We  must  cultivate  patience.  We 
must  have  the  kindly  judgment.  How  much  good 
breath  would  be  saved  if  men  would  only  give  others 
credit  for  good  intentions,  even  though  their  methods 
seem  to  be  wrong  ! 

And  we  must  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  others. 
We  must  think  ourselves  into  their  situation.  We 
must  sit  where  they  sit.  We  must  learn  to  feel  their 
grievances  and  enter  into  their  burdens.  We  have 
found  ways  of  insulating  ourselves  against  the  shock 
of  others'  troubles  by  soft  pads  of  comfort ;  or  by 
the  callous  heart,  till  the  world's  agony  which  makes 
the  air  electric  with  unrest,  leaves  our  conscience 
unmoved.  We  must  change  all  this.  Sickness  and 
sorrow  and  the  sufferings  of  others  are  our  great 
opportunity  of  binding  others  to  us  in  a  sympathy 
that  would  quicken  the  pulse  of  the  whole  community 
with  a  new  life. 

And  the  common  life  demands  self-sacrifice.  It 
will  mean  loss  to  individuals,  for  it  will  have  to  be 
translated  into  terms  of  money.  The  poor  will  be 
richer,  and  the  rich  will  be  poorer.  We  will  need  to 
learn  to  pay  our  income  tax  with  the  same  good 
grace  as  we  give  a  large  subscription  to  a  charity. 
We  will  need  to  put  our  hearts  into  the  payment  of 


1 82  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

our  common  dues.  A  tax  can  be  as  dear  to  God  as 
the  offering  we  make  to  the  collection  plate  or  the 
subscription  we  give  to  a  charity,  if  we  have  the  spirit 
of  the  community.  Sacrifice  is  part  of  the  price  we 
pay  for  the  privilege  of  our  common  life. 

Where  are  we  to  find  this  spirit?  We  can  only 
learn  it  from  Jesus.  Part  of  the  pathos  of  the  whole 
movement  of  our  time  is,  that  many  are  trying 
to  be  Christian  without  Jesus.  They  are  trying  to 
learn  love  without  the  power  of  the  great  Lover. 
We  cannot  learn  to  love  men  till  we  have  learnt  to 
see  Christ  in  them.  We  cannot  learn  the  spirit  of 
forbearance  toward  others,  save  as  we  catch  it  from 
Christ's  forbearance  toward  us.  We  cannot  develop 
the  spirit  of  trust,  save  as  we  know  what  it  means 
to  be  trusted  by  Christ  with  the  great  trust  of  His 
friendship.  We  cannot  learn  the  spirit  of  sacrifice, 
save  at  the  Cross  which  is  the  fountainhead  of  all 
self-giving.  How  are  we  to  get  rid  of  the  hatred 
and  suspicion  and  selfishness  which  break  out  in 
strife,  setting  man  against  man  ?  How  are  we  to  get 
rid  of  self? — that  is  the  problem.  There  is  only  one 
answer.  It  must  be  crucified  and  slain  in  a  great 
surrender  to  the  Christ  who  masters  us  in  the 
subduing  discipline  of  His  fellowship. 

With  a  great  wistfulness  which  is  half-unconscious 
of  itself,  the  world  is  seeking  for  the  spirit  which 
Christ  brought  in.  Again  and  again,  our  very  failures 
reveal  the  fact  that  the  principles  of  Christ  are  no 
mere  dreamer's  visions  from  a  far-off  sphere  without 
application  to  our  life  on  earth,  as  they  seem  to 
many  people.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  the  revela- 
tion of  the  unseen  order  of  reality  which  is  the 
basis  of  the  universe  and  the  only  secret  of  life  and 


THE  DUTY  OF  HOLDING  TOGETHER    183 

happiness.  Christ  reveals  in  His  principles  the  only 
ground  on  which  we  can  hope  to  live  together  in 
happiness  and  peace.  The  laws  of  the  spiritual  life 
which  He  lays  down,  are  the  laws  of  human  life  in 
its  reality;  and  we  cannot  expect  either  power  or 
peace  except  as  we  live  in  harmony  with  these,  any 
more  than  we  can  expect  a  healthy  body  in  defiance 
of  the  laws  of  health,  or  a  well-built  house  which 
disregards  the  law  of  gravity.  The  reason  why 
Christ's  principles  seem  impossible  is  that  we  look 
at  them  apart  from  Jesus.  When  Christ  gave  that 
teaching  to  His  disciples,  the  thing  that  made  all  the 
difference  was  that  He  was  there.  They  were  in  His 
company.  They  heard  His  voice.  They  felt  the 
power  of  His  friendly  love.  His  spirit  alone  can  turn 
what  look  like  impossible  commands  into  practical 
politics.  From  Christ  alone  we  catch  the  spirit  which 
is  the  cement  of  society.  It  is  what  we  draw  from 
Him  and  put  into  life,  that  will  bring  us  together 
and  keep  us  together,  bridging  our  differences  and 
solving  our  problems.  Some  time  ago  a  book  was 
published  containing  an  account  of  a  Communistic 
experiment  which  was  made  in  Patagonia.  A  band 
of  people  under  a  leader,  went  there  to  set  up  a  new 
State,  but  the  one  thing  on  which  he  had  made 
up  his  mind,  and  they  with  him,  was  that  there 
was  to  be  no  religion.  Christ  was  to  be  left  out  of 
the  ship,  as  He  is  being  left  out  to-day  by  many  of 
the  advanced  Communists.  This  little  society  went 
on  well  enough  for  a  time,  till  the  first  impulse  was 
exhausted  ;  then  differences  began  to  creep  in.  The 
power  was  gone,  "  the  Spirit  was  departed,"  selfishness 
broke  out  with  all  its  accompaniments  of  vice  and 
sin.     At  last,  in  sheer  despair,  the  leader  invented  a 


1 84  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

god  of  his  own  and  went  preaching  this  caricature  of 
a  deity,  with  disastrous  results.     In  the  end,  the  whole 
society  was   only  saved  from  utter  collapse  by  the 
advent  of  a  man  who  preached  Christ  and  brought 
the  flame  of  faith  to  kindle  their  hearts  into  reverence, 
and   purity,   and    brotherhood.     It   does    not   really 
matter  what  kind  of  political  state  we  set  up,  pro- 
vided it  is  Christian.     No  one  knows  in  what  external 
ways  the  spirit  of  love  will  organize  the  world  and 
take  shape  in  our  common  life.     To  pin  our  faith  to 
one  system  rather  than  another,  in  the  meantime,  is 
to  set  the   emphasis  in   the  wrong  place.     It   looks 
like  tying  the  hands  of  the  Spirit  of  God.     But  one 
thing  is  sure — disaster  lies  ahead  for  any  state  which 
is   based  on  selfishness  and  materialism,  whether  it 
be  of  the  classes  or  the  masses.     There  is  but  one 
Captain  of  the  ship  who  can  hold  us  together.     His 
rule  is  love.    His  commands  are  justice  and  righteous- 
ness.    His  men  are  comrades,  forbearing  one  another, 
serving  one  another.     Except  He  abide  in  the  ship, 
we  can  none  of  us  be  saved. 


THE   CALL   OF   CHRIST  IN   OUR   DAILY 

CALLING 

"  He,  trembling  and  astonished  said,  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me 
to  do  ?  " — Acts  ix.  6. 

The  conversion  of  Paul  is  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able things  in  history.  Explain  it  as  we  will,  it  can 
never  be  explained  away.  Critics  have  dealt  with  the 
outward  signs,  the  light  and  the  voice  and  the  other 
accompaniments,  and  some  have  tried  to  belittle 
them.  These  are  not  the  important  things.  The 
thing  which  is  important  is  the  life  which  resulted 
from  the  experience,  and  that  is  the  thing  which  will 
not  dissolve  in  the  acid  of  criticism.  In  the  last 
resort  the  outstanding  miracle  is  not  Paul's  conversion 
— it  is  Paul's  career.  A  new  day  dawned  for  Europe 
with  its  outworn  civilization  when  Paul  flung  his  old 
life  dead  at  the  feet  of  Christ  and  rose  new-made. 

One  of  the  outstanding  things  in  the  conversion 
itself  is  the  completeness  of  Paul's  surrender  to  Jesus. 
His  whole  opposition  to  Christ  collapsed  like  a  great 
fortress  whose  foundations  have  been  undermined. 
With  many  people,  conversion  is  a  long  and  gradual 
process.  When  Christ  comes  upon  the  soul,  said 
John  Owen,  "  He  hath  no  quiet  landing-place."  He 
finds  a  foothold  in  one  part  of  the  nature,  but  it 
often  takes  years  before  He  has  consolidated  His 
victory  and  won  control  of  every  part  of  the  citadel. 


1 86  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

Many  men  are  Christian  in  their  sentiments  but 
they  are  not  Christian  in  their  thinking;  they  are 
Christian  in  their  home  but  not  in  their  business  ;  in 
their  private  life  but  not  in  their  social  relationships ; 
and  often  they  do  not  realize  it.  Paul  could  do 
nothing  by  halves,  even  when  he  was  trying  to  ex- 
terminate Christianity ;  and  the  very  strength  of  his 
nature,  organized  and  disciplined  against  Christ,  went 
immediately  over,  with  all  its  developed  power,  to 
Christ's  control.  Doubtless  the  ferment  of  Chris- 
tianity had  been  working  secretly  in  his  unconscious 
mind.  Down  in  the  depth  of  his  nature  the  conflict 
had  been  going  on  for  long.  The  light  (of  unresisting 
love)  on  Stephen's  dying  face  had  struck  deep  into  his 
soul  and  stirred  a  nest  of  uncomfortable  suggestions. 
But  however  it  was,  there  was  nothing  half-hearted 
in  his  surrender  to  Christ.  It  was  a  case  of  perfect 
abandonment.  And  he  fell  on  his  face,  trembling 
and  astonished,  and  said,  "  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou 
have  me  to  do  ?  " 

These  words,  on  the  surface,  suggest  a  man  whose 
life  has  been  brought  to  wreck  and  ruin  around  him, 
and  who  is  at  his  wits'  end — the  condition,  as  the 
Psalmist  tells  us,  in  which  a  man  is  ready  to  make  a 
beginning  with  God,  and  God  is  able  to  take  charge 
of  his  life.  But  there  was  more  in  the  cry  than  sheer 
despair,  for  Paul  was  not  in  the  habit  of  using  words 
rashly.  There  were  two  things  in  it  to  which  we 
ought  to  give  our  minds. 

There  was  the  instinct  for  action,  and  the  acknow- 
ledgment that  religion  demands  activity.  "  What 
wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  ?  "  Like  everything  else, 
Christianity  must  find  expression  in  action,  for 
genuine  life  produces  activity.     Every  living  thought 


THE  CALL  OF  CHRIST  187 

blazes  a  path  for  itself  in  words  or  deeds.  Every 
deep  emotion  must  find  a  channel.  There  is  very 
little  Christianity  about  a  man  if  it  is  not  making  him 
do  something.  There  is  very  little  fire  in  the  loco- 
motive if  it  is  not  transforming  its  energy  into  motion. 
When  God  sought  to  reveal  His  highest  thought,  He 
put  it  into  a  /t/e.  Real  religion  is  not  a  theology  to 
be  argued  about,  it  is  a  life  to  be  lived.  The  trouble 
with  many  people  is  that  they  use  worship  as  a 
lightning  conductor  for  religious  emotion  to  pass 
harmlessly  away,  instead  of  finding  some  contact 
with  life's  tasks  or  duties  in  which  that  emotion  can 
become  vital  and  dynamic. 

Further,  religious  activity  is  the  activity  of  the 
whole  life  directed  by  Jesus.  The  whole  man  must 
be  in  it — the  praying  man,  the  loving  man,  and 
the  working  man.  When  Paul  said,  "  Lord,  what 
wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  ?  "  he  put  his  whole  life  at  the 
disposal  of  Jesus.  He  gave  into  the  hands  of  Christ 
the  steering-wheel  and  the  engine  control  and  stood 
by  to  obey  orders.  He  made  Christ  Master  of  the 
ship.  He  hailed  Christ  Lord  of  his  whole  personality. 
His  thinking  was  to  be  guided  by  Christ  for  in 
Christ  he  recognized  the  truth.  His  ambition  was 
to  be  directed  by  Christ  for  in  Christ  he  had  found 
life's  glorious  objective.  He  would  take  up  whatever 
work  Christ  bade  him  do.  He  was  ready  to  scrap 
all  the  old  life,  work  and  friendships,  career  and 
habits,  in  order  that  Christ  might  reconstruct  his  life 
from  its  foundations.  Everything  was  flung  into  the 
melting-pot,  to  be  run  into  the  moulds  and  reshaped 
by  Christ.  Other  men  since  his  day  have  done  the 
same  thing,  and  made  a  completely  fresh  beginning. 
Francis  of  Assisi  left  behind  him  the  whole  furniture 


1 88  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

of  a  rich  man's  life  and  went  out  to  found  a  new  order 
of  Christian  service.  Brother  Lawrence,  after  being 
a  footman  and  a  soldier,  put  his  life  at  the  disposal  of 
Christ  and  found  his  sphere  of  labour  in  the  kitchen 
of  a  Carmelite  Monastery.  However  impossible  such 
revolutionary  changes  of  calling  may  seem  to  us  in 
our  own  situation,  they  light  up  the  meaning  of 
Christianity,  which  is  a  life  set  at  the  disposal  of 
Christ.     "  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do?  " 

This  brings  before  us  the  whole  question  of  the 
call  of  Christ  and  our  daily  calling.  The  truth  faces 
us  at  once  from  this  cry  of  Paul,  that  a  man's  daily 
calling  must  be  part  of  the  expression  of  his  Christian 
life.  There,  as  elsewhere,  Christ  must  direct  and 
control.  Christianity  is  not  an  affair  of  leisure 
moments — an  emotion  we  can  express  in  the  special- 
ized activity  of  worship  or  devotion.  To  cut  Chris- 
tianity out  of  our  daily  work  whatever  that  may  be^ 
and  find  no  room  there  for  Christian  service,  is  to 
divide  life  into  two  conflicting  parts,  which  in  the 
long  run  will  bring  the  whole  structure  of  character 
to  the  ground.  To  shut  the  office  door  or  the  factory 
gate  upon  Christ,  is  to  deny  the  mastership  of  Jesus 
in  the  most  essential  part  of  our  life.  For  a  Christian 
man,  the  phrase  that  "  business  is  business  "  in  the 
meaning  some  give  to  it,  is  a  denial  of  Christ's  right 
to  rule.  "  I  mean  to  live,"  said  a  man  once,  "  and 
to  have  no  gaps  of  death  in  the  middle  of  my  life." 
We  dare  not  tolerate  patches  of  selfishness  in  the 
middle  of  our  Christianity.  Life  has  no  neutral 
territory  where  Christ  is  King. 

We  cannot  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  this  opens 
up  a  good  many  difficulties.  For  one  thing,  if  our 
work  is  to  be  Christian,  we  must  be  sure  we  are  doing 


THE  CALL  OF  CHRIST  189 

the  thing  Christ  wants  us  to  do.     We  must  be  sure 
we  have  a  task  which  can  express  a  Christian  person- 
ality.    That  is  where  the  shoe  pinches.     Can  we  fulfil 
this  condition  as  things  are  to-day?     Many  people 
will  tell  us  that  as  the  world  is  now  organized  it  is 
not   possible.     Who  will  dare  to  say  that  the  right 
men  are  always  in  the  right  places  ?     Most  men  and 
women    find   their   work  already  cut  out   for   them. 
The  struggle  for  existence  demands  that  they  take 
the  first  thing  which  opens  up  as  a  means  of  earning 
a  living.     Thousands  are  flung  by  the  pressure  of  life 
and  an  imperfect  education  into  blind-alley  employ- 
ments, where  they  must  drudge  through  life  as  best 
they  can.     There  is  no  waste  in  the  community  so 
startling  as  the  waste  of  its  man  power.     Countless 
people  are  doing  manual  labour  whose  capacities  are 
worthy  of  far  wider  opportunity.     Countless   others 
have  found  privileged  positions  which  are  far  too  big 
for  their  powers.     Some  tell  us  that  the  very  conditions 
of  their  daily  work  are  such  as  to  stultify  their  souls 
and  make  the  elementary  Christian   principles  next 
door    to    impossible.      There    is   a    whole    host    of 
businesses  which  are  unchristian  both  in  their  methods 
and  in  their  results.     Can  a  Christian  man  possibly 
find    a    legitimate    calling    in    providing    degrading 
entertainments,  or   unworthy  literature,  or   make   a 
profit  out  of  trades  which  are  poisonous  to  the  moral 
and  physical  well-being  of  those  who  are  engaged  in 
them  ?     The  problem  for  a  man  in  such  a  situation 
is  one  which  he  will  have  to  face  for  himself  by  the 
light  of  his  own  conscience.     It  may  be  his  duty  to 
go  out  of  a  calling  or  business  which  offers  a  per- 
petual rebuke  to  conscience,  if  he  is  unable  to  change 
the  conditions.     Many  of  the  early  Christians  had 


190  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

precisely  that   problem   before   them.      They  found 
themselves  in  tasks  which  ministered  to  idolatry,  for 
instance,  and  their  work  became  a  menace  to  their 
faith.     Dr.  R.  T.  Glover  tells  with  charming  tender- 
ness  the   story   of  a   sculptor   in   these   early   days 
who  was  converted  to  Christ.     As  the  light  broke 
gradually  into  his  life,  it  came   home   to  him   that 
he  could  no  longer  make   images   of  the   gods   for 
heathen  temples.     He  could  not  put  a  Christian  soul 
into  a  heathen  image.     Very  reluctantly,  but  with 
conviction,  he  gave  up  that  handicraft  with  all  its 
appeal  to  the  artistic  sense,  and  took  to  a  mason's 
calling,    shaping    stones,    squaring    and    cutting  — a 
prosaic  occupation,  but  one  at  least  which  he  felt 
was   not  inconsistent  with  his  faith,  and  where  he 
could  find  a  useful  way  of  serving  his  fellows.     But 
the  artist  in   his   soul  demanded  expression  in   his 
work,  and  he  conceived  the  idea  of  making  a  statue 
of  the  Good  Shepherd  with  the  lost  lamb  upon  His 
shoulders.     People  criticised  the  truth  of  the  statue. 
The  Good  Shepherd  of  the  tenth  of  John  has  no  lamb 
upon    His   shoulders;  but  the  answer  was  that  this 
was  his  experience  of  what  Christ  had  done  for  him. 
He    had   been   found    by   the    Shepherd,   lost    and 
wandering,  and  the  truth  of  Christ  in  his  own  soul 
demanded  outlet  in  his  craft. 

That  is  the  point.  The  truth  of  Christ  in  our  souls 
must  find  outlet  in  our  calling.  Every  part  of  life 
must  give  expression  to  the  mind  which  has  been 
touched  by  the  redeeming  power  of  Jesus.  If  we  are 
His,  our  work  must  show  it.  It  may  be,  the  right  thing 
for  us  is  not  to  leave  our  post  but  to  stay  there  and 
work  steadily  for  changing  the  conditions,  bringing  a 
new  conscience  into  a  degrading  business  to  sweep 


THE  CALL  OF  CHRIST  191 

it  clean  of  all  that  is  unworthy  of  truth  and  love. 
The  business  of  a  Christian  society  is  to  create  a 
conscience  about  bad  conditions  and  unworthy  occu- 
pations. But  the  path  for  each  individual  is  the  path 
that  opens  up  in  answer  to  that  surrender  to  Christ, — 
to  that  cry,  "  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  ?  " 
There  are  two  classes  of  people,  however,  who  are 
not  affected  by  what  I  have  said.  There  are  those 
who  have  still  the  power  to  a  certain  extent  to  choose 
their  life-work.  The  world  lies  open  with  various 
doors  of  opportunity,  and  the  question  is,  "  What  shall 
we  be  ? "  As  we  scan  these  doors  we  must  pray, 
"Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do?"  What 
is  the  line  of  life  in  which  we  can  serve  Christ 
best  through  our  daily  calling?  We  must  lift  the 
whole  matter  into  the  light  of  Christ.  What  is  the 
calling  in  which  we  can  be  surest  of  His  fellowship 
and  direction  ?  What  is  the  calling  in  which  we  can 
exercise  our  gifts  to  the  best  advantage  for  Him  and 
for  His  world  ?  How  can  we  best  express  a  Christian 
personality,  with  such  gifts  as  we  have,  or  such  limita- 
tions as  we  have,  and  find  satisfaction  for  what  is 
deepest  in  our  nature?  There  is  a  hymn  very  dear 
to  the  Christian  mind  which  assures  us  that — 

The  daily  round,  the  common  task. 
Will  furnish  all  we  ought  to  ask. 
Room  to  deny  ourselves,  a  road 
To  lead  us  daily  nearer  God. 

There  are  two  fallacies  in  this  view  of  a  great  truth. 
Our  business  is  not  to  find  room  to  (3?'^;y/ ourselves  ; 
it  is  to  find  room  to  express  ourselves.  And  the  main 
purpose  of  our  life  is  not  to  lead  us  daily  nearer  God; 
it  is  to  carry  the  world  nearer  God,  to  make  it  a 
sweeter  place  to  live  in,  a  place  in  which  people  will 


192  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

find  it  easier  to  believe  in   Him — though   the  one 
includes  the  other. 

The  word  "  calling "  here  involves  the  whole  ques- 
tion. People  use  it  freely  without  thinking  what  it 
means.  We  cannot  choose  a  calling  ;  we  have  to  be 
called  to  it.  People  speak  of  their  trade  or  profession 
as  their  calling,  though  in  reality  they  have  had  no 
call  and  have  sought  no  guidance,  but  have  gone  into 
it  with  a  view  of  doing  something  which  they  felt 
would  be  congenial  and  in  which  they  could  earn 
their  bread  and  butter  with  as  little  discomfort  as 
possible.  Our  calling  is  something  to  which  we  have 
been  called  by  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  guidance  of 
life.  It  means  a  task  through  which  we  can  best 
exercise  our  will  to  serve  Christ  with  all  our  gifts. 
We  speak  of  a  minister's  call.  For  a  Christian  man 
every  trade  may  be  a  calling  as  sacred  as  the  ministry. 
A  man  may  be  called  to  build  houses  or  bake  bread, 
or  sell  clothes  to  the  glory  of  God,  as  truly  as  a 
preacher  to  preach  the  gospel.  What  makes  the 
service  of  Christ  sacred  is  not  the  kind  of  work  we 
are  doing,  provided  it  is  honest — it  is  the  spirit  in 
which  we  do  it,  and  the  possibility  of  putting  our 
whole  self  into  it.  The  world  is  in  sore  need  of  men 
and  women  in  definite  Christian  service  at  home  and 
abroad,  but  the  world  is  dying  for  men  and  women 
who  will  find  in  their  work  a  sacred  call  and  see 
in  it  a  means  of  expressing  their  loyalty  to  Christ. 
What  we  need  to-day,  as  some  one  says,  is  "the 
spiritual  mind  in  the  man  of  the  world."  Our 
choice  of  a  profession  must  not  be  governed  by  the 
money  we  can  earn  or  the  profit  we  can  win.  The 
money  pull  in  industry  is  the  root  of  half  our  troubles. 
When   the  quality   of    work   is   confused   with    the 


I 


THE  CALL  OF  CHRIST  193 

quantity  of  wages  and  our  service  is  determined  by 
our  rewards,  the  devil  gets  into  the  business  and  our 
life  goes  off  the  rails.  I  have  known  men  and  women 
who  made  the  choice  of  their  destiny  in  the  choice  of 
their  life-work.  They  saw  a  path  of  service,  which 
they  knew  was  the  very  call  of  God  for  them,  where 
they  could  have  done  magnificent  work,  but  another 
path  tempted  them  with  the  promise  of  an  easier  life 
and  a  higher  material  reward.  They  chose  the  lower 
path,  and  ever  after,  the  worm  of  dissatisfaction  v/as 
in  their  souls,  eating  into  their  happiness,  while  "that 
great  talent  which  were  death  to  lose,  lodged  in  them 
useless."  God  does  not  want  any  man  to  be  any- 
thing else  than  himself  He  does  not  want  an  artist 
to  be  a  commercial  man,  or  a  man  who  would  have 
made  a  first-rate  clerk  to  become  an  indifferent 
minister.  So  far  as  we  can,  if  the  choice  is  open,  we 
must  find  the  place  where  we  can  best  use  such  gifts 
as  we  have.  How  shall  we  hear  the  call  ?  To  some 
extent  circumstances  may  guide  us,  but  the  whole 
matter  must  be  lifted  into  the  light  of  Christ,  with 
the  world's  need  open  before  us.  We  must  begin 
by  putting  ourselves  at  His  disposal,  and  bit  by  bit 
as  we  think  the  matter  out  in  the  spirit  of  a  complete 
surrender,  circumstances  will  shape  for  us  an  open 
door,  and  we  will  see  our  duty  as  clearly  as  a  beckon- 
ing hand. 

But  what  of  those  who  have  no  choice,  or  have 
made  their  choice  before  they  became  alive  to  Christ, 
and  now  find  all  other  doors  are  shut?  It  may  be 
we  are  in  a  situation  where,  in  the  light  of  some  new 
experience,  we  should  like  to  change  our  calling. 
Many  have  already  drifted  into  their  niche  by  com- 
pulsions not  of  their  own  making.  What  are  we  to 
13 


194  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

say  to  them  ?  The  word  for  them  is  surely  this, — 
that  the  compulsions  of  life  must  be  accepted  as  the 
call  of  God.  If  we  are  in  a  place  from  which  there 
is  no  escaping,  that  place  is  for  us  the  place  of  our 
calling.  It  is  the  place  in  the  meantime  where  God 
can  help  us  to  serve  Him.  The  great  thing  is  to  take 
our  work  and  our  gifts  and  put  them  at  His  disposal 
there.  Perhaps  our  work  seems  to  give  little  scope  for 
the  expression  of  our  souls  and  we  have  to  find  the 
full  expression  outside  of  it.  Thousands  are  doing 
routine  tasks  where  they  become  mere  machines, 
working  a  lever  or  tending  a  loom  the  whole  day 
long,  year  in  and  year  out.  Their  whole  personality 
is  so  depressed  in  those  hours  of  labour  that  their 
temptation  is  to  fly  to  some  excitement  when  their 
work  is  done ;  and  one  of  the  tasks  that  face  us  is  so 
to  educate  men  that  when  routine  work  is  over  they 
will  be  able  to  find  an  outlet  for  their  minds  in  some 
useful  creative  task  or  hobby. 

But  even  in  tiresome  work  there  is  room  for  the 
triumph  of  a -Christian  spirit.  There  is  room  for  faith- 
fulness and  for  honesty,  and  for  doing  the  utmost 
we  can,  putting  our  best  effort  into  a  dreary  task. 
These  are  the  homespun  virtues  on  which  the  world 
moves.  These  are  the  foundation  virtues  on  which  the 
happiness  of  the  community  is  built,  the  very  rock- 
bottom  of  all  prosperity  and  peace.  Many  a  task  is 
dreary  just  because  men  are  not  putting  their  best 
into  it.  The  point  of  joy  is  always  the  point  of 
sacrifice.  "  When  the  sacrifice  began,  the  song  of  the 
Lord  began  also  with  the  trumpets."  Poor  work 
loses  the  power  to  produce  the  song  in  the  heart. 
Nothing  takes  the  zest  from  labour  like  half-hearted 
effort.     "  Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  *  labour 


THE  CALL  OF  CHRIST  195 

it  up  to  the  point  of  honour.' "  All  work  can  serve 
Christ  if  it  is  useful  to  humanity.  We  put  a  notice 
board  at  the  church  door  stating  that  Divine  Service 
begins  at  eleven  o'clock.  The  church  door  has  no 
right  to  a  monopoly  of  that  word.  Above  every 
office  door,  shop,  and  factory,  a  Christian  man  will 
read  that  notice  illuminated  by  the  inner  light  of  the 
Kingdom  in  his  soul — Divine  Service  begins  here  at 
seven  o'clock  or  nine  o'clock,  as  the  case  may  be. 
*'  One  is  your  Master,  even  Christ."  The  word  still 
holds,  and  holds  of  every  activity  of  life. 

What  industry  needs  to-day  is  a  new  baptism  of 
the  mastership  of  Jesus.  Are  there  no  changes  we 
can  make  in  the  quality  of  our  work,  if  not  in  the 
form  of  it?  Would  it  not  make  a  difference  to  the 
whole  standard  of  life's  comfort  and  the  prosperity 
of  our  fellows  if  we  took  Christ  into  the  workshop 
with  us  and  made  our  toil  a  fellowship  with  Him  ? 
Would  it  not  change  the  dingiest  workshop  into  some- 
thing like  a  temple,  if  we  knelt  in  spirit  at  the  bench 
at  the  day's  beginning,  like  a  priest  at  his  altar,  and 
sought  to  consecrate  our  gifts  and  our  tools  to  Christ. 

Our  work,  whatever  it  be,  is  only  a  channel.  The 
task  of  a  Christian  man  is  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
That  is  our  business.  Paul  had  to  leave  his  early 
calling  and  scour  the  face  of  Europe  with  his  gospel 
to  do  it.  He  revealed  Christ  with  his  mind,  his 
tongue,  his  method,  his  friendship.  He  revealed  Him 
in  the  helping  hand  he  held  out  to  others,  in  the 
courage  and  patience  of  his  great  soul  liberated  by 
faith  amid  a  tangle  of  difficulties  in  victorious  service. 
There  is  no  part  of  our  life  in  which  the  light  of 
Christian  character  may  not  break  through  some 
chink  or  cranny.     So  far    as    we   are    Christian   we 


196  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

are  translating  Christ  to  the  world  in  everything  we 
do,  as  Christ  revealed  something  of  Himself  in  every 
situation.  And  a  man  can  translate  Christ  to  his 
fellows  in  the  language  of  a  finished  piece  of  work,  in 
its  limited  degree,  as  clearly  as  he  can  in  a  book  or 
a  poem  or  a  sermon.  The  artist,  the  musician,  the 
carpenter,  the  business  man  may  all  reveal  Jesus  in 
their  conflict  with  the  materials  of  their  life.  Dr.  John 
Brown  tells  how  Thackeray  and  two  friends  were 
walking  out  one  night  near  Edinburgh  while  the  red 
sun  was  setting  over  the  hills.  They  came  to  a  quarry 
from  which  a  builder's  crane  stood  up,  with  its  cross 
beams  in  relief  against  the  evening  sky,  lit  by  the 
dying  splendour  of  the  sun.  They  stood  for  a 
moment  gazing  at  it,  while  the  same  thought  struck 
them  all,  finding  expression  in  one  whispered  word, 
"  Calvary."  There  is  a  sacrifice  in  all  true  labour  in 
which  the  spirit  of  man,  at  its  best,  shines  out;  as  the 
soul  of  Jesus  was  revealed  upon  the  black  and  bitter 
Cross.  Have  we  ever  seen  in  the  drudgery  which  life 
demands,  the  possibility  of  a  Calvary  in  which  our 
souls  may  suffer  to  the  point  of  pain,  seeking  to  serve 
the  Kingdom  with  our  best — and  suffering,  may 
shine? 

In  these  days  in  which  we  live,  every  calling  has 
larger  opportunities  than  lie  upon  the  surface.  There 
are  men  and  women  with  whom  our  daily  work  brings 
us  into  the  closest  contact.  There  are  great  problems 
which  every  master  and  every  man  has  some  share  in 
solving.  There  are  tasks  facing  every  employer 
to-day  far  greater  than  even  the  task  of  getting  good 
work  done ;  and  every  manual  worker  has  business  on 
hand  far  greater  than  securing  a  minimum  wage  and 
shorter  hours.     Every  man  has  his  opportunity,  how- 


THE  CALL  OF  CHRIST  197 

ever  small,  of  putting  something,  through  his  labour, 
into  the  making  of  the  new  world  towards  which  life 
is  leading  us.     What  kind  of  spirit  are  we  bringing 
into   the   industry   with   which   we    are   connected? 
What  spiritual  quality  is  being  liberated  through  the 
calling  in  which  we  serve  the  world  ?     Is  it  the  spirit 
of  goodwill,  of  unselfish  labour,  of  fellowship?      By 
that  spirit  alone  our  industrial  order  will  be  brought 
into  peace  and  harmony,  and  that  spirit  is  the  spirit 
of  Christ.     How  many  difficulties  would   vanish   if 
every  master  looked  on  his  men  as  Paul  looked  on 
those  to  whom  he  went  to  preach,  "  my  brother,  for 
whom  Christ  died,"  men  with  personalities  of  their  own 
and  qualities  of  soul  craving  expression  in  a  worthy 
life;  and  not  as  mere  instruments  of  production  ?    How 
many  problems  would  be  solved  if  every  workman 
looked  on  his  employer  as  a  man  with  his  own  task 
and  burden,  caught  often  against  his  own  will  in  the 
toils  of  a  system  for  which  he  is  not  responsible  ? 

The  great  thing  is  to  get  away  from  all  thought  of 
rewards,  into  a  sense  of  God's  need  of  our  labour  and 
our  direct  responsibility  to  Him.  The  early  Chris- 
tians had  a  great  picture  ever  before  their  eyes,  the 
judgment-seat  of  Christ.  No  one  stood  between  them 
and  God ;  He  came  right  into  their  life.  It  was  He 
in  the  last  resort  with  whom  they  had  to  do.  They 
were  fellow-labourers  with  Him  in  the  great  creative 
and  redeeming  task.  They  were  helping  God  to 
finish  His  creation.  In  Him,  amid  the  world's 
censure  and  disappointment,  they  found  their  peace. 

If  there  be  good  in  that  I  wrought, 
Thy  hand  compelled  it.  Master,  Thine: 
Where  I  have  failed  to  meet  Thy  thought 
I  know,  through  Thee,  the  blame  is  mine. 


198  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

One  instant's  toil  to  Thee  denied 
Stands  all  Eternity's  offence. 
Of  that  I  did  with  Thee  to  guide, 
To  Thee,  through  Thee  be  excellence. 

Who,  lest  all  thought  of  Eden  fade, 
Bring'st  Eden  to  the  craftsman's  brain, 
Godlike  to  muse  o'er  his  own  trade. 
And  Manlike,  stand  with  God  again. 


THE  TESTING  HOUR  OF  LIBERTY 

**So  when  they  had  further  threatened  them,  they  let  them  go,  .  .  , 
And  being  let  go,  they  went  to  their  own  company." — Acts  iv.  21,  23. 

This  incident  marks  the  passing  of  the  first  perilous 

hour  of  the  Christian  Church.     Up  to  this  point  it 

had   not   been   tried.     It   had   been  in   the  nursery, 

living  within  doors,  a  quiet   and  secluded  company 

cherishing  its   sacred    memories   and  lofty  hopes  in 

prayer  and   fellowship.     There  was  just  the  chance 

that  this  faith  might  prove  to  be  a  kind  of  hothouse 

plant  which  the  breath  of  persecution  or  the  freezing 

contempt   of  the   outside   world   would  wither   into 

nothingness.     And  this  chapter  tells  of  the  first  flame 

of  that  searching  fire  which  leaped  out  upon  them 

and  through  which  they  had  to  walk  till  every  bit  of 

shallowness  and    insincerity  had   been  burnt  out  of 

their  faith.     How  well  they  stood  this  test  before  the 

Council !     Unlettered  though  they  were,  they  found 

the  gift  of  tongues.     Dared  to  speak  in  Christ's  name, 

they  made   answer   that   they  dared   not  be  silent. 

Threatened  with  every  sort  of  dark  and  terrible  fate, 

they  had  a  fear  in  their  hearts  which  made  them 

proof  against  all  other  fear. 

That  hour  before  the  Council  was  a  revelation  of 

character  of  the  great  shining  depths  of  affection  and 

loyalty  to  Christ  which  gleamed  out  of  their  rugged 

souls.     "  When  they  saw  the  boldness  of  Peter  and 

199 


200  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD  "" 

John,  they  marvelled."     But  that  is  not  the  revelation 
of  which  I  want  to  speak.     They  had  another  test  to 
pass    through — the   hour   of  liberty   when    the  long 
strain  was    over  and   they  stood   in   the  street  once 
more.     They  were  free  to  go  where  they  liked  and 
to  do  what  they  chose — and  they  went  to  their  own 
company.     In  its  own  way  this  was  a  revelation  of  the 
sincerity  of  their  faith.     It  was  a  declaration  of  their 
secret  souls.     It   revealed  where  their  treasure  was, 
and  the  things  they  valued  most  in  life.     Where  did 
they  go?     They  went  to   Stephen   the  martyr,  and 
Mary  of  Bethany,  and    Matthew  the  Publican,  and 
all  the  rest  of  that  band  of  shining  spirits — the  very     i 
aristocracy   of    Christ.     Could    there    be    a    clearer    i 
picture   of  the   kind   of  men  they  were   than  this  ? 
When  they  let   them   go,   they  went   to   their   own     i 
company. 

To-day  we  think  m.uch  of  liberty,  and  speak  much 
of  liberty.  All  the  currents  of  our  time  are  flowing 
in  the  direction  of  a  freer  life,  fewer  hours  of  labour, 
less  bondage  of  convention,  less  restrictions  of  any 
kind.  Time  was  when  men  dared  not  say  what  they 
chose,  or  print  what  they  wrote,  or  worship  as  their 
hearts  bade  them.  We  have  moved  from  that 
bondage  long  ago.  To-day,  one  after  another,  the 
old  conventions  are  breaking.  There  is  our  way  of 
spending  Sunday,  for  instance;  for  good  or  ill,  the 
old  set  ways  of  quietness  and  restricted  pleasure  are 
passing.  People  have  different  ways  of  looking  at 
this  drift  toward  liberty.  Some  are  afraid  of  it ;  they 
look  on  it  as  a  danger.  There  are  those  who  tell  us 
we  have  too  little  of  that  State  control  of  our  indi- 
vidual lives  which  made  Germany  before  the  war  so 
efficient,  its   people  so   docile  in  their  bravery  and 


THE  TESTING  HOUR  OF  LIBERTY      201 

their  brutality,  so  easily  driven  to  daring  or  devil- 
ment. Others,  on  the  other  hand,  look  on  liberty  as 
a  glorious  privilege,  and  a  positive  good  in  itself  what- 
ever it  may  lead  to.  For  the  moment  let  us  look  on 
liberty  as  this  incident  suggests — a  test  of  character, 
a  gift  which  reveals  as  nothing  else  can  do,  the  kind 
of  men  and  women  we  are.  The  hours  of  freedom  are 
the  searching,  self-revealing  hours  of  life.  What  we 
do  then,  think  then,  seek  then,  shows  us  what  we  are. 
When  we  are  let  go,  we  go  to  our  own  company. 

There  are  numberless  illustrations  of  this.  To 
begin  with,  the  hour  of  liberty  from  labour  is  a  self- 
revealing  hour.  No  one  will  deny  that  looking  at  a 
man's  work,  you  can  tell  something  about  him. 
Character  tells  in  the  way  we  work  and  the  kind  of 
work  we  do.  Slipshod  work  means  shoddy  character. 
Thorough  work  means  a  patient  soul.  Ruskin  in  his 
Stones  of  Venice  describes  a  statue  high  up  in  a 
Venetian  church,  which  to  the  outward  eye  was 
finished  with  exquisite  skill,  but  if  you  climbed  up  to 
examine  it  more  closely  you  had  a  rude  shock,  for 
the  back  of  the  statue,  hidden  from  the  spectator's 
eye,  was  left  in  its  rough  state — the  work  of  a  man 
who  wrought  only  for  appearances  and  cared  little 
for  the  best.  But  ten  years  later,  as  Ruskin  tells, 
having  looked  up  the  records,  that  man  was  banished 
from  the  city  for  forgery.  There  was  a  flaw  in  his 
character  which  ran  all  through.  A  man's  person- 
ality is  a  unity.  "  The  heart,"  says  Emerson,  "  cannot 
be  hid."  Is  there  a  streak  of  baseness  somewhere 
about  a  man,  is  there  a  vein  of  gold  among  the  dross, 
then  it  will  run  all  through  like  a  stratum  in  the  rocks. 
You  will  meet  it  cropping  up  in  his  home  life,  in  his 
friendships,   in   his   worship,   if  you   can    look  deep 


202  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

enough ;  but  the  place  where  that  streak  of  baseness 
or  that  vein  of  gold  will  show  up  most  is  the  hour  of 
leisure.  When  the  clock  strikes  six,  where  does  the 
mind  travel,  where  do  the  feet  begin  to  move  ? 
What  are  the  pleasures  we  naturally  seek,  when 
we  are  absolutely  free  to  use  time  as  we  please? 
What  kind  of  thoughts  do  we  think  in  the  off-hours 
when  we  have  no  need  to  concentrate  on  the  business 
in  hand  ?  What  castles  in  the  air  do  we  build  in  the 
hour  of  the  liberated  imagination  ?  What  friends  do 
we  seek,  and  having  found  them,  what  is  the  trend 
of  conversation  when  there  is  no  absorbing  topic  of 
the  moment?  Does  it  run  up  or  down?  These 
things  are  judging  us,  showing  us  if  we  will  only 
open  our  eyes,  something,  at  least,  of  the  kind  of  men 
and  women  we  are  at  heart. 

Or  again,  character  is  tested  and  revealed  by  the 
things  men  do  when  the  leading  strings  of  youth  fall 
off.  There  is  a  perilous  time  in  the  life  of  every 
young  man  or  woman,  like  this  time  in  the  early 
Church.  It  is  the  hour  when  the  angel-guidance 
leaves  us,  as  the  angel  left  Peter,  and  we  go  down 
the  big  wide  street  of  life  alone.  A  young  man's 
character  will  be  seen  in  the  way  he  treats  his  parents, 
when  there  is  no  longer  need  to  obey  them,  in  the 
deference  he  pays  to  their  counsels,  to  their  demands, 
even  when  these  are  querulous  and  galling.  And  the 
thing  that  reveals  it  best  is  the  first  hour  of  inde- 
pendence  when  a  young  man  is  on  "his  own."  What 
customs  does  he  fling  off  then  ?  How  do  his  affec- 
tions, his  tastes  develop  ?  Is  he  true  or  false  to  the 
principles  he  held — or  thought  he  held?  Has  the 
fireside  teaching  reached  his  blood  or  only  his  brain  ? 
It  is  then  he  will  learn,  if  he  will,  how  much  of  his 


THE  TESTING  HOUR  OF  LIBERTY      203 

cToodness  has  been  real  and  vital,  and  how  much 
has  been  skin-deep;  what  of  his  principles  have  been 
his  own  and  not  merely  a  borrowed  light ;  how  much 
of  his  character  has  been  a  solid  building  and  not  a 
ramshackle  structure  kept  standing  by  the  props  of 
others'  compulsion  and  example. 

There  are  people  who  speak  of  the  first  taste  of 
dissipation,  in  phrases  that  try  to  take  the  taint  from 
it  •  as  the  inevitable  stumbling  before  men  find  their 
feet  •  as  the  sowing  of  wild  oats  before  men  settle 
down  •  as  a  careless  abandon  due  to  the  first  intoxi- 
cating taste  of  liberty.  The  truth  is  that  every 
temptation  which  lures  us  at  the  moment  of  liberty 
is  revealing  something  in  us  which  responds  to  it. 
There  is  no  temptation  in  all  God's  wide  world  the 
sucraestion  of  which  does  not  touch  some  chord  in 
ourown  sensitive  souls  that  maybe  we  have  never 
known  was  there  till  then.  The  hour  of  liberty  hfts 
the  curtain  from  the  inner  life  and  shows  us  what 
is  lurking  within. 

This    word    has   a   very   real   bearing   upon    our 
national  life.     For  five  years  our  nation  was  in  the 
chains    of  a   noble   effort.      Some  were   chained   to 
munition  work,  some  to  hospitals,  to  the  Army  or 
the  Navy— and  there  is  no  bondage  so  careless  of 
personality  as  that— but  the  hour  of  freedom  came. 
How  are  we  using  it?     We  have  hardly  had   time 
to  recover  from  the  rebound  and  the  question  is  still 
unanswered.     But   the   next    few  years   will  be  the 
clearest  revelation  of  the  national  character  we  have 
had  for  long.     We  speak  of  war  as  a  test,  and  it  has 
been  a  test,  but  the  years  of  war  brought  their  own 
exhilarations,  and  its  power  to  reveal  our  character, 
our  real  character,  will  be  nothing  to  that  of  these 


204  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

hard-won,  blood-bought  years  of  liberty.  We  often 
spoke  of  what  we  were  learning  in  war;  the  years 
that  face  us  will  reveal  the  depth  and  seriousness  of 
the  lesson.  The  question  before  us  to-day  is  the 
question  of  how  we  are  going  to  use  our  liberty. 
What  defilements  will  we  cleanse  away  ?  What  bonds 
of  custom  will  we  break  ?  How  will  the  national  life 
shape  itself?  In  what  direction  will  we  let  loose  our 
energies  ?  The  years  ahead  will  test  us,  and  by  that 
test  we  will  stand  or  fall. 

Now  it  may  be  said  we  have  been  speaking  of 
liberty  as  a  perilous  thing,  and  some  one  may  ask 
the  question  why  it  should  have  been  looked  upon  as 
so  precious}  Why  have  men  been  willing  to  suffer 
and  die  for  it  ?  Why  has  the  whole  urge  of  noble 
manhood  carried  us  out  toward  wider  liberties? 
Why  has  God  Himself  inspired  these  struggles  for 
liberty?  For,  remember,  there  is  no  great  struggle 
for  freedom  which  has  not  religion  at  the  back  of  it. 
It  is  a  common  habit  to  think  of  religion  simply  as  a 
binding  force,  and  some  people  fling  it  off  as  a  kind  of 
shackle.  Yet  there  is  nothing  which  has  broken  so 
many  bonds,  nothing  that  has  given  man  such  power 
to  crush  tyranny,  as  faith.  A  man  never  knows  what 
a  stifled,  imprisoned  life  he  has  been  living  till  he 
begins  to  breathe  the  air  of  faith.  "  Faith  is  the 
highest  of  high  explosives."  How  many  liberties 
came  in  with  Jesus!  What  is  forgiveness  but  the 
gift  of  freedom,  the  grace  of  a  second  chance,  a  glad 
new  day  for  the  man  who  has  been  sunk  in  some 
degrading  bondage.  Why,  then,  has  God  inspired 
this  struggle  right  down  through  the  ages,  and 
awakened  this  desire  of  liberty  ?  Why  is  liberty  so 
precious  to  God  if  so  perilous  to  man  ? 


THE  TESTING  HOUR  OF  LIBERTY      205 

To  begin  with,  the  hour  of  liberty  is  piecious 
because  it  is  the  hour  of  self-determination.  It  is 
the  hour  of  the  making  of  manhood  and  womanhood. 
The  old  beautiful  story  in  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis 
tells  of  the  gift  of  liberty  God  gave  to  man  at  his 
birth.  He  made  him  free  of  all  the  trees  in  the 
garden  except  one,  but  he  put  no  fences  round  that 
tree ;  man  could  eat  of  it  if  he  chose.  And  why  were 
there  no  fences  there?  Because,  only  through  choice, 
through  the  crisis  of  decision,  through  the  freedom 
to  take  his  own  way,  could  man  rise  into  manhood 
and  struggle  into  power.  You  will  never  turn  a 
child  into  a  man  by  keeping  him  in  leading-strings. 
Do  not  mistake  me.  There  is  far  too  little  bondacre, 
reasonable  restriction,  in  the  home-life  of  to-day. 
No  man  is  fit  to  use  his  liberty  till  he  has  spent  his 
opening  years  doing  exactly  as  he  is  told,  where  the 
hand  of  compulsion  is  wise,  and  where  in  every 
possible  case  parents  will  give  him  a  reason  and 
enlist  his  will  through  his  mind.  Such  wise  com- 
pulsion will  teach  habits  that  cannot  be  learned  any 
other  way.  It  will  train  the  wild  shoots  at  the  time 
when  they  are  liable  to  riot,  and  give  the  tree  the 
best  chance  of  growing  straight.  But  a  point  comes 
where  these  bonds  must  fail,  must  be  cut,  if  the  tree 
is  to  flourish  into  its  best.  No  man  can  grow  into 
manhood  save  by  the  struggle  and  the  travail  of  great 
decision  made,  by  himself  and  for  himself,  in  the  lonely 
spaces  of  his  own  unfettered  soul.  It  is  by  that 
struggle  and  stress  we  grow. 

The  things  we  do  in  this  perilous  and  precious  hour 
of  liberty  make  or  mar  us.  It  is  the  friends  we  choose 
of  our  own  free  affection  that  have  the  keeping  of  our 
souls,  not  those  that  are  forced  upon  us.     It  is  the 


2o6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

decision  we  make  when  we  are  free,  that  determines 
our  destiny.  It  is  the  deeds  we  do  when  the  chain 
is  off,  that  stamp  upon  our  nature  the  marks  of  doom 
or  glory.  It  is  the  worship  to  which  we  give  our- 
selves in  the  freedom  of  our  aspiration,  the  prayers 
that  start  out  of  the  heart's  agony,  though  they  be 
but  a  sob,  which  bring  us  the  peace  and  the  power 
of  God's  presence.  An  old  writer  on  liberty,  when 
the  first  glory  of  religious  freedom  began  to  dawn  in 
England,  set  down  his  reason  for  religious  toleration. 
"  I  may  grow  rich  by  a  word  I  take  no  delight  in.  I 
may  be  cured  of  some  diseases  by  medicines  I  have 
no  faith  in ;  but  I  cannot  be  saved  by  a  religion  I 
detest  or  a  ritual  I  abhor."  There  is  no  real  goodness 
which  does  not  come  from  the  goodwill.  Christ 
Himself  refuses  a  love  which  is  forced,  an  allegiance 
which  is  not  free ;  in  point  of  fact  there  is  no  such 
thing. 

But  there  is  another  reason  for  the  preciousness  of 
liberty.  It  is  God's  faith  that  if  a  man  be  free,  really 
free — there  is  something  in  him  deeper  than  anything 
else,  something  in  the  very  centre  of  his  being,  which 
will  start  out  and  lead  him  straight  to  God.  Take 
it  for  granted :  a  man  is  not  at  home  till  he  has 
found  his  home  in  God.  And  the  hour  when  bonds 
break  and  he  is  alone,  unfettered,  brings  the  awaking 
of  home-sickness.  Not  when  he  was  living  in  the 
household  with  all  its  regulations  did  the  prodigal 
awake  to  the  blessedness  of  home ;  but  in  the  far 
country  when,  one  after  another,  his  false  friends 
had  cast  him  off.  Bit  by  bit,  the  spell  of  sin  was 
broken  and  he  was  alone  in  the  desert.  Then  his 
heart  turned  back  to  home,  and  the  prayer  broke  out 
like  water  from  a  long  choked  fountain,  "  I  will  arise, 


THE  TESTING  HOUR  OF  LIBERTY     207 

and  go  to  my  father."  When  he  was  let  go,  he  went 
to  his  own  company.  Men  have  sometimes  kept  an 
imprisoned  bird  for  a  year  or  two,  giving  it  now  and 
again  its  freedom  under  the  delusion  that  they  could 
tame  it,  so  that  it  would  never  crave  its  native  air. 
But  one  day  the  window  was  left  open  and  it  hopped 
into  the  sunshine,  looked  around,  tried  its  wings,  and 
was  off  to  return  no  more.  Nature  and  the  wide  sky 
and  the  company  of  its  own  kind  called  it  because  it 
belonged  to  these,  and  in  freedom  it  found  itself. 

Nothing  can  finally  force  a  creature — man  or  beast 
— to  be  content  with  an  alien  bondage.  Some  day 
in  the  hour  of  freedom  it  will  seek  its  own,  or  long  to 
seek  it,  with  a  longing  which  nothing  in  its  sheltered 
surroundings  can  quite  repress.  Hawthorne  has  a 
weird  story  of  a  birthmark  which  marred  the  face  of 
a  very  beautiful  woman.  She  married  a  husband 
who  adored  her,  and  to  make  her  still  more  beauti- 
ful he  sought  and  found  a  chemical  which  would 
remove  the  birthmark.  He  used  it  and  the  mark 
disappeared  like  the  stain  of  the  rainbow  fading 
out  of  the  sky ;  but  that  day  the  woman  died.  A 
strange  tale !  What  does  it  mean  ?  We  can  make 
our  own  interpretation.  It  might  suggest  that  in  the 
most  perfect  attachment,  for  the  discipline  of  our 
forbearance,  there  is  always  something  which  love 
has  to  live  down — some  imperfection  to  make  us  love 
one  another,  as  Mrs.  Browning  puts  it,  "  for  love's  sake 
only,"  and  not  for  some  pretty  touch  of  manner  or 
surface  beauty.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  might 
suggest  that  on  every  one  of  us  there  is  a  birthmark, 
the  mark  of  our  origin  in  God,  and  you  cannot 
remove  that  mark  without  destroying  the  man 
himself.     It  is  in  us,  as  the  rainbow  is  part  of  the 


208  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

sky.  Deeper  than  all  conventions,  deeper  than  the 
stain  of  sin,  deeper  than  any  pressure  of  tyranny  to 
slay  or  smother,  it  belongs  to  us  ;  and  it  is  God's  faith 
for  you  and  me,  that  in  the  hour  of  freedom  we  shall 
seek  and  find  our  own  in  God. 

Here,  then,  is  the  safeguard  of  liberty — to  see  it 
in  this  light.  All  liberty  is  God's  gift — our  free 
hours,  our  free  lives,  the  freedom  which  is  our 
heritage  to-day.  Freedom  is  not  safe  for  any  one 
of  us  till  we  see  it  as  a  sacred  trust.  It  is  God's 
trust,  and  His  purpose  by  the  gift  of  it,  is  to  draw  our 
lives  to  Him.  In  point  of  fact,  our  only  real  freedom 
is  the  freedom  to  choose  our  master,  and  only  as  we 
choose  God  for  our  Master  do  we  keep  our  liberty. 
Life's  revenge  upon  us  for  misused  liberty  is  always 
to  bring  us  under  some  darker  bondage. 

The  end  of  the  war  has  brought  freedom  to  us  in 
many  ways.  For  some  people  it  has  come  in  the 
uprooting  of  the  old  life  so  that  they  are  free  to  make 
a  new  beginning.  For  others  it  has  meant  a  recovery 
of  their  manhood  and  the  discovery  in  themselves  of 
powers  unrealized — courage,  and  comradeship,  and 
energy,  which  war  has  awakened  and  used  and  then 
released.  For  some  of  us  freedom  has  come  in  ways 
that  are  shadowed  and  dark.  Old  ties  are  broken. 
Ambitions  we  cherished  for  some  we  loved  are 
shattered.  Avenues  of  hope  are  blocked.  We  have 
been  detached  and  set  free.  Yet  in  this  freedom,  is 
there  not  a  call  of  God?  Can  we  not  find,  even 
in  the  sorrow  which  has  closed  some  doors,  a  way 
opening  up  to  a  larger  usefulness,  which  but  for 
this  sad  liberation  had  been  impossible?  If  death 
has  loosened  anchors,  is  it  not  a  call  to  launch  out 
upon  God's  tide,  to  use  our  lives  for  some  purpose 


THE  TESTING  HOUR  OF  LIBERTY     209 

which  is  more  directly  vital  to  His  Kingdom  ?  Is 
there  no  one  we  can  help,  for  instance,  with  the 
money  we  would  have  lavished  on  the  boy  who  died 
for  country,  no  work  for  Christ  that  waits  to  fill  the 
empty  hands? 

And  freedom  has  come  to  our  nation,  old  ideas  are 
fading,  old  prejudices  are  breaking  down,  old  customs 
are  dying,  the  dark  shadow  that  has  threatened  us 
for  a  generation  has  been  rolled  away.  How  shall 
we  use  our  freedom  ?  That  is  God's  call  to  us  to-day. 
Patriotism  as  a  national  ideal  is  not  enough  for  a 
nation  such  as  ours,  with  our  power  of  spiritual 
leadership  among  the  nations.  There  is  only  one 
safeguard  for  us.  It  is  to  remember  that  our  liberty 
is  a  trust,  a  trust  from  God.  The  blood  of  struggling 
saints  and  heroic  soldiers  is  in  it.  The  shadow  of  the 
Cross  of  Calvary,  within  which  every  sacrifice  takes 
its  rise,  is  over  it.  We  are  not  our  own,  we  are 
bought  with  a  price.  Our  freedom  is  not  our  own. 
It  is  theirs.  It  is  God's.  Wherefore,  in  the  new 
free  days  that  lie  before  us,  "  let  us  glorify  God  with 
our  bodies  and  our  spirits,  which  are  God's." 


14 


THE   TRIUMPH   OF   FAITH  I 


"^ 


"  By  faith  the  Israelites  passed  through  the  Red  Sea :  .  .  .  which 
the  Egyptians  assaying  to  do  were  drowned." — Heb.  xi.  29. 

Nothing  can  teach  us  so  much  as  history,  if  we 
read  it  aright.  There  is  only  one  way  to  read  it 
aright — by  the  light  of  God.  That  is  what  the  Bible 
does  for  us ;  it  gives  us  history  read  by  the  light 
of  God.  It  illuminates  the  events  of  life  in  their 
spiritual  significance  which  is  their  only  real  and 
final  significance. 

This  sentence  is  a  lightning  sketch  of  a  great  his- 
torical event  seen  in  the  light  of  God.  Here  are 
two  bodies  of  men  facing  the  same  difficulty.  They 
have  gone  out  on  the  same  road,  the  one  pursued,  the 
other  pursuing.  There  is  very  little  to  choose  between 
them  so  far  as  the  eye  can  see,  except  that  we 
would  imagine  the  Egyptians  had  the  best  chance  of 
overcoming  the  impasse.  Yet  the  one  failed  and  the 
other  succeeded.  The  Israelites  got  over  dry-shod, 
while  the  Egyptians  were  swamped  in  the  waters  and 
were  utterly  lost.  Wherein  lay  the  difference?  That 
is  what  the  writer  explains  in  our  text.  He  is  not 
dealing  with  this  matter  from  the  scientific  point 
of  view.  His  business  is  not  with  the  mechanical 
process  by  which  the  Red  Sea  was  crossed.  He  is 
concerned  with  the  spiritual  secret  which  in  the  end 
lies  behind  all  physical  processes — the  final  root  of  all 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  FAITH  211 

victorious  achievement  even  in  the  brute  struggle  of 
life.  It  was  more  than  a  coincidence,  more  than  mere 
bad  luck.  The  secret  lies  deeper.  It  lies  deep  down 
in  the  roots  of  the  soul,  in  the  attitude  with  which 
they  were  facing  life.  By  faith,  says  the  writer,  the 
Israelites  crossed  over  the  Red  Sea.  And  faith  is 
the  spiritual  attitude  to  life.  It  is  the  attitude  by 
which  men  see  life's  meaning  in  God,  and  launch 
themselves  out  upon  the  hopes  and  promises  and 
promptings  which  rise  within  the  soul  when  we  get 
face  to  face  with  God.  There  lay  the  difference. 
The  one  set  had  the  spiritual  attitude  to  life ;  they 
were  obeying  a  spiritual  instinct ;  they  were  giving 
themselves  up  to  the  challenge  and  call  of  God  within 
their  souls.  The  others  had  no  faith.  They  were 
out  only  for  their  own  advantage;  they  were  living 
for  the  moment ;  for  the  pleasure  and  prosperity  of 
the  hour.  They  saw  nothing  in  this  upheaval  of 
the  Israelites  except  a  movement  of  rebellion  which 
was  going  to  deprive  them  of  the  source  of  their 
wealth  and  comfort.  There  lay  the  difference,  and 
when  it  came  to  a  crisis,  the  one  set  survived,  and  the 
other  went  down.  By  faith  the  Israelites  passed 
through  the  Red  Sea :  which  the  Egyptians  assaying 
to  do  were  drowned. 

Now  this  is  a  tremendously  suggestive  way  of 
putting  things.  It  sends  its  light  into  the  life, 
to-day,  both  of  men  and  nations,  in  many  directions. 
There  are  two  things  which  lie  upon  the  surface. 
The  one  is  that  it  is  not  circumstances  that  count  in 
life;  it  is  the  men  who  face  them.  In  other  words, 
it  makes  all  the  difference  in  any  situation  what  kind 
of  man  is  facing  it.  The  key  to  events  lies  in  the 
men  and  women  who  play  their  part  in  them.     Some- 


212  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

times  a  difificult  problem  arises  in  politics  or  engineer- 
ing, and  a  tremendous  task  has  to  be  faced.  Can  it 
be  done?  men  ask,  and  they  get  to  work  upon  the 
circumstances,  figuring  things  out  and  making  calcula- 
tions. They  make  up  their  minds  perhaps  that  on 
the  facts  the  thing  is  impossible ;  and  then  some  one 
defies  all  their  calculations  and  does  the  thing  in 
spite  of  them.  One  man  will  succeed  where  a  dozen 
of  others  will  fail.  One  man  will  quell  a  stormy 
meeting  with  an  argument  which  would  only  arouse 
laughter  if  it  were  used  by  another.  When  David 
Livingstone  stood  facing  the  Kalahari  desert  and 
looked  longingly  across  to  the  other  side,  he  was 
warned  on  every  hand  that  it  was  no  use  attempt- 
ing it,  for  others  had  tried  better  equipped  than  he, 
and  their  bones  lay  white  on  the  desert  sand.  But 
Livingstone  went  and  got  through.  There  is  only 
one  explanation ;  he  was  David  Livingstone,  and 
they  were  not.  The  secret  of  success  or  failure  does 
not  lie  in  circumstances.  It  lies  in  the  spirit  of  the 
men  and  women  who  tackle  the  difficulty,  and  in  the 
secret  roots  of  personality  from  which  their  strength 
is  drawn.  These  two  sets  of  people  went  out  to 
meet  the  same  barrier  under  the  same  conditions. 
There  was  no  reason  in  nature  why  the  Red  Sea 
should  have  yielded  to  the  one  and  not  to  the  other. 
The  difference  lay  within  themselves.  The  one  set 
were  Israelites  and  the  others  were  Egyptians. 

The  second  thing  which  lies  upon  the  surface  is 
this,  that  the  vital  difference  between  one  man  and 
another  lies  in  the  possession  of  faith,  or  the  want  of 
it.  The  secret  of  triumph  is  victorious  personality,  and 
that  is  the  product  of  creative  faith.  Faith  is  always 
creative.     It  puts  that  into  a  situation  which  changes 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  FAITH  213 

everything.  On  the  surface,  the  Egyptians  should 
have  won.  They  were  far  better  equipped.  They 
had  the  advantage  of  civilization  and  the  gift  of  a 
hundred  vanished  arts.  They  were  highly  skilled 
and  efficient  in  many  departments  of  life,  as  we 
know  from  their  ancient  monuments.  The  Israelites 
were  a  race  of  slaves,  cowed  in  spirit,  petty  and 
shortsighted,  wearied  out  with  years  of  drilling  and 
tyranny.  But  they  had  faith  and  the  others  had 
not.  It  was  only  a  spark  of  faith  they  had,  a  mere 
germ  which  a  chance  visitor  would  hardly  have 
detected.  But  faith  is  a  thing  of  infinite  possibilities. 
As  Christ  has  told  us,  even  though  it  be  small  as  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed  it  lays  open  to  us  the  resources 
of  God.  It  links  men  on  with  the  strength  of  the 
eternal.  It  brings  into  life  the  powers  of  the  unseen 
world.  There  is  nothing  to  which  it  cannot  grow, 
and  nothing  in  life  which  will  not  yield  to  it,  if  only 
it  be  real.  It  is  the  final  secret  of  all  efficiency, 
even  in  the  things  of  this  world.  Zinzendorf  the 
Moravian  mystic,  was  fond  of  riding  and  could 
master  the  wildest  horse  in  his  father's  stables. 
Some  one  remarked  on  his  efficiency  in  horseman- 
ship and  wondered  how  it  could  exist  in  a  man  of 
his  unworldly  mind.  His  answer  was  that  only  the 
man  who  is  living  above  the  world  is  the  master  of 
the  world. 

There  are  people  who  imagine  that  faith  is  a  mere 
fancy,  a  kind  of  additional  grace  added  to  life,  a  thing 
of  taste  or  temperament.  It  is  the  greatest  of  mis- 
takes. Faith  is  the  one  vital  thing  in  life,  the  one 
thing  which  makes  the  real  difference  between  one 
man  and  another.  It  is  high  time  we  Christian 
people  realized  the  vital  value  of  our  faith  in  God 


2  14  THE  VICTORY   OF  GOD 

There  never  was  a  time  when  we  needed  more  to 
insist  on  the  difference  between  a  religious  man  and 
an  unbeliever.  The  truth  is,  that  in  the  last  resort 
faith  is  the  one  thing  that  counts.  The  thing  that 
really  measures  and  judges  a  man,  is  what  he  is  in 
the  deeps  of  his  spirit  in  relation  to  Jesus  Christ. 
How  do  we  stand  toward  Christ?  that  is  our  real 
standing  in  the  world.  What  place  does  Christ  take 
in  our  lives  ?  That  is  the  real  test  of  life's  efficiency  in 
such  a  world  as  this.  That  is  the  heart  of  everything — 
the  secret  of  personality,  by  which  we  make  our  mark 
on  things  in  the  long  run.  It  may  not  appear  on  the 
surface  at  first ;  but  it  is  the  root  of  everything — our 
influence,  our  power,  our  character,  our  service ;  and 
in  the  long  run  it  determines  our  destiny.  Every- 
thing comes  out  of  that  hidden  fountain  of  person- 
ality of  which  our  secret  life  is  attuned  to  God,  and 
to  the  purposes  of  His  Kingdom. 

So  from  the  heights  of  Will 
Life's  parting  stream  descends. 
And  as  a  moment  turns  each  slender  rill 
Each  widening  torrent  bends, — 

From  the  same  cradle's  side. 
From  the  same  mother's  knee, 
One  to  long  darkness  and  the  frozen  tide, 
One  to  the  Peaceful  Sea. 

It  was  the  moment  when  their  souls  were  lit  with  the 
spark  of  faith  and  hope  and  they  gave  themselves  up 
to  its  light  and  leading,  which  decided  the  destiny  of 
these  Israelites,  and  their  souls  reached  the  power  to 
master  circumstances  and  bend  them  to  their  will. 

Now  if  we  want  proof,  that  the  religious  man  is  the 
master  of  all  things  and  has  the  power  of  shaping 
life,  we  have  it  in  one  familiar  fact.     We  are  for  ever 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  FAITH  215 

being  forced  by  the  very  necessities  of  our  life,  into 
situations  where  we  cannot  do  without  God,  and  the 
power  which  faith  brings  into  Hfe.  When  we  take  it 
seriously,  life  is  always  carrying  us  into  circumstances 
which  we  cannot  meet  and  master  without  the  help 
of  God.  Here  is  a  young  man  who  is  forced  out  into 
life  by  the  necessity  of  his  career.  He  goes  from  his 
quiet  home  into  the  wider  world,  to  a  great  city,  it 
may  be  to  a  foreign  land.  In  a  moment  he  finds 
himself  up  against  strange  and  intoxicating  tempta- 
tions, where  he  is  in  constant  peril  of  being  carried 
off  his  feet.  It  comes  to  him  that  if  he  is  to  meet 
these  things  fairly  and  keep  his  footing,  he  must  find 
something  to  hold  on  to,  something  big  enough  to 
quell  the  illusion  of  temptation  that  is  for  ever  laying 
its  spell  upon  his  soul.  He  is  up  against  a  situation 
in  which  there  is  no  help  for  him  except  in  a  new  look 
at  Jesus  Christ,  strong  enough  and  vivid  enough  to 
bring  into  his  soul  the  glory  of  redeeming  grace. 
Through  faith  he  can  meet  these  things,  without  faith 
he  will  go  down. 

Or  take  the  fact  of  sorrow.  Sooner  or  later  we  are 
forced  up  against  it.  A  big  cloud  swoops  down  upon 
us  like  a  thunderstorm  in  a  summer  sky.  All  our 
life  is  in  ruins.  That  is  a  common  situation.  How 
are  we  to  meet  it  without  going  under?  We  may 
try  one  thing  and  another,  but  before  long  it  comes 
to  us  that  we  cannot  meet  it  without  God.  The 
ordinary  commonplaces  of  comfort  are  not  enough ; 
they  are  insipid  ;  they  are  an  insult  to  a  broken  heart. 
Spiritualism  is  not  enough ;  though  the  very  craze 
for  spiritualism  is  one  of  the  best  testimonials  that 
was  ever  given  to  the  spiritual  nature  of  man.  It  is 
a  confession  that  in  the  hour  of  sorrow  we  are  up 


21 6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

against  a  situation  which  we  cannot  meet  without 
drawing  upon  the  resources  of  the  Unseen.  When 
a  great  singer  lost  his  only  son  in  the  war,  he  said  to 
a  friend,  "  When  a  man  comes  to  a  thing  like  this, 
there  are  just  three  ways  of  it.  There  is  drink,  there 
is  despair,  and  there  is  God;  and  by  His  grace,  it's 
God  for  me."  By  faith,  in  such  an  hour,  we  shall  get 
through  and  keep  our  footing  and  our  hope ;  without 
faith  we  shall  be  drowned  ! 

Perhaps  it  is  the  necessity  of  the  world's  need 
which  sends  us  out  to  a  difficult  situation.  God 
knows  it  is  oftentimes  harder  to  see  others  suffer  than 
to  suffer  ourselves,  and  especially  to  see  the  suffering 
of  those  we  love.  On  the  impulse,  we  rush  in  to  help. 
We  yearn  to  take  some  sinking  soul,  and  lift  him  up. 
We  long  to  save  some  one  from  the  grip  of  a  habit 
which  is  dragging  him  down  to  the  depths.  Is  there 
anything  more  baffling,  more  disheartening,  anything 
which  throws  a  greater  strain  on  our  patience,  on 
our  faith  in  humanity,  than  to  look  at  the  world  as 
it  is  in  many  places  and  to  try  to  do  some  service  in 
it?  The  world  is  full  of  people  who  have  tried  to 
meet  its  need  and  have  gone  under,  finding  their  own 
faith  swamped  in  wave  after  wave  of  cynicism  and 
despair  which  came  over  their  souls.  There  is  only 
one  way  in  which  a  man  dare  meet  the  need  of  the 
world,  dare  face  its  crushing  burdens  and  sins, — by  a 
new  and  victorious  faith  in  God  and  in  the  amazing 
potency  of  grace.  Sooner  or  later  we  must  come  to 
that,  or  go  down.  I  have  known  students  for  the 
ministry  who  left  their  college,  after  training,  with  a 
very  feeble  faith,  riddled  with  intellectual  doubts — 
they  were,  of  course,  only  cutting  their  wisdom  teeth. 
But  when  they  went  out  and  faced  the  bitter  needs 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  FAITH  217 

of  the  world,  it  came  to  them  that  they  must  find  a 
living  Christ,  a  divine  and  radiant  Saviour,  or  else  have 
no  message  that  would  meet  the  need  of  to-day  and 
renew  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament.  By  a  full 
and  passionate  faith,  they  could  get  through  and  go 
on  ;  without  it,  they  must  have  gone  under  in  despair. 
These  are  but  passing  illustrations  of  this  great 
fact  that  we  are  out  in  a  world  where  there  is  no  help 
for  us  but  in  God.  We  may  cry  out  as  some  men 
do  upon  such  a  world  as  this.  There  is  a  picture  by 
a  great  artist,  which  depicts  God  in  the  act  of  making 
His  world.  As  the  vision  of  it,  with  all  its  terror  and 
tragedy,  looms  up  amid  chaos,  there  is  one  who  says 
to  Him,  "  If  about  to  make  such  a  world  as  that, 
stay  Thine  hand."  This  is  how  we  all  feel  sometimes. 
But  the  truth  is,  the  world  was  never  meant  for  the 
man  who  would  live  in  it  without  the  power  and  hope 
of  a  living  faith.  We  have  no  right  to  meet  life 
without  God  and  then  complain  about  it !  Life  is  a 
spiritual  adventure  which  we  can  only  face  upon  the 
terms  of  faith.  The  love  that  made  the  world,  alone 
can  give  us  power  to  live  in  it.  The  God  who  made 
us  free,  has  resources  in  His  grace  enough  to  meet 
every  situation — even  those  we  create  by  the  abuse 
of  freedom.  That  is  a  great  word  of  Paul's,  that  in 
God  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  What 
does  it  mean  but  just  this,  that  the  whole  order  of 
things  is  a  spiritual  order.  It  is  from  God's  hand  we 
take  it,  and  we  dare  not  take  it  without  God  any 
more  than  a  captain  dare  face  the  ocean  without  that 
contact  with  the  magnetic  current  by  which  his 
compass  is  directed,  without  the  sun  and  stars  by 
which  he  steers.  Without  God  and  the  contact  with 
Him  which  comes  by  faith,  life  is  a  vast  meaningless 


2i8  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

ocean  swept  by  tides  and  tempests  which  have  us  at 
their  mercy,  so  that  we  become  derelict.  In  God  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  and  it  is  only  as 
we  keep  our  being  in  God,  that  we  can  live  and  move. 
^  This  incident  has  a  very  special  application  to  our' 
time  and  to  its  needs.  Life  has  forced  us  in  these 
days  upon  a  very  difficult  adventure.  We  are  moving 
into  a  time  in  which  we  shall  need  more  faith  than 
ever  men  had  before. 

There  is  the  international  situation,  for  instance. 
How  is   that  to  be  met?     One  thing  is  certain,  we 
must  get  out  of  the  old  place  in  which  we  have  lived 
so  long,  into  a  land  of  new  relationships  between  the 
nations.     God  is  calling  us,  by  the  very  shudder  in 
our  soul  and  the  ghastly  experience  of  war,  to  find 
a  new  way  of  living.     It  is  unthinkable,  in  spite  of 
the  prophecies  of  famous  generals,  that  we  should 
begin  to  plan  our  life  afresh  on  the  basis  of  future 
wars.     God  is  calling  us  to  such  a  new  way  of  life  as  is 
foreshadowed  in  the  League  of  Nations.     To  be  sure, 
that  has  its  difficulties.     So  had  the  journey  to  the 
promised  land  for  the  Israelites ;  it  had  its  difficulties. 
There  was  the  Red  Sea  to  begin  with,  and  if  they 
had  waited  till  everything  was  clear,  they  would  never 
have  gone  out  at  all.     The  League  of  Nations  has 
its  difficulties  and  its  risks.     It  means  a  pooling  of 
interests.     It  means  a  call  to  sacrifice   and  to  un- 
selfishness.    It  means  exchanging  the  old  securities 
for  the  forces  which  are  awakened  by  a  great-hearted 
faith  in  God  and  in  one  another  and  in  the  power  of 
justice  and  righteousness— to  hold  the  nations  together 
and  bring  them  into  a  way  of  peace.     There  is  no 
going  back  !     And  there  is  no  going  forward  without 
this  faith  and  all  that  proceeds  from  it.     The  League 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  FAITH  219 

will  be  what  we  make  it  by  the  spirit  we  breathe  into 
it.  It  will  have  the  power  we  put  into  it,  and  the 
power  by  which  it  can  stand  is  the  power  that  comes 
from  the  vision  of  the  Kingdom.  By  faith  we  shall 
cross  over,  without  faith  we  shall  go  down. 

And  there  is  the  national  situation  to-day.  Here 
again  we  are  being  forced  out  into  a  new  world. 
The  old  world  of  self-interest  has  become  too  narrow 
for  the  growing  soul  of  democracy.  Put  it  as  we  like, 
that  is  the  inner  meaning  of  it.  Great  classes  of  men 
are  moving  out  to  demand  a  new  voice  in  the  direction 
of  their  own  affairs.  They  have  caught  a  vision  of 
a  promised  land,  the  whole  nation  has  caught  that 
vision — the  vision  of  a  new  Britain — and  we  are  out 
to  find  it.  But  the  way  is  full  of  peril.  There  are 
rocks  ahead  and  barriers  which  must  be  overcome. 
The  Red  Sea  was  a  trifling  obstacle  to  the  Israelites, 
compared  with  the  transitions  which  we  are  facing 
to-day.  And  the  question  is,  how  are  we  facing  them. 
Have  we  faith  enough  in  God  and  in  one  another  ? 
Is  there  vision  enough  in  the  rising  democracy  to 
lead  it  clear  of  the  swamps  of  sheer  materialism  and 
class-selfishness  ?  Is  there  vision  enough  in  the  stal- 
warts of  the  old  order,  to  let  the  past  go  at  the  right 
moment,  as  men  on  the  harbourside  let  go  the  cables 
when  the  ship  is  ready  to  start  out.  The  crux  of  the 
matter  is,  that  we  are  being  forced  into  a  new  way 
of  social  and  economic  life,  which  demands  spiritual 
qualities — goodwill  and  unselfishness  and  loyalty  to 
one  another.  Do  we  realize  that  these  can  only  come 
from  faith  in  God  and  a  new  vision  of  His  Kingdom? 

We  shall  never  get  through  till  we  all  bring  the 
mind  of  Christ  to  bear  upon  the  situation.  It  is  an 
hour  when  the  nation  needs  men  of  faith  and  vision 


2  20  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

at  the  helm  of  State,  men  who  will  steer  by  the  stars 
and  not  grope  from  point  to  point  with  the  rush-light 
of  expediency.  In  1652,  when  things  were  going 
badly  with  this  nation  in  the  war  with  Holland,  the 
great  John  Owen  preached  to  Parliament,  "  You  take 
counsel  with  your  own  hearts.  You  advise  with  one 
another.  You  hearken  unto  men  with  a  repute  of 
wisdom,  and  all  this  doth  but  increase  your  trouble. 
You  do  but  more  and  more  entangle  and  disquiet 
your  own  spirits.  God  stands  by,  and  says,  *  I  am 
wise  also,'  and  very  little  notice  is  taken  of  Him." 
Does  not  that  strike  the  note  of  our  need.  God 
stands  by,  as  He  stood  by  the  Red  Sea ;  God  stands 
by.  Are  we  going  to  bring  in  His  wisdom,  the 
guidance  that  comes  through  prayer,  the  faith  that 
comes  by  seeing  men  and  things  with  the  eyes  of 
Jesus.  Ours  is  a  fatal  situation  for  anything  short  of 
a  full  and  vital  and  wide-hearted  faith. 

And  there  is  a  message  here  for  the  Church  of 
Christ.  What  is  the  secret  of  the  Church's  weakness, 
in  the  life  of  to-day?  For  we  cannot  deny  that 
weakness,  in  some  respects  at  least.  Let  us  get  to 
the  root  of  it.  Are  we  living  up  to  our  resources  in 
God?  Are  we  meeting  the  tasks  of  life  with  the 
requisite  faith?  Are  we  staying  our  souls  on  the 
mighty  forces  which  are  in  Christ  ?  Are  we  drawing 
from  Him  to  give  to  the  world  what  He  has  to  give? 
Is  the  witness  of  our  daily  life  clear  and  shining? 
Are  we  reaching  a  personal  victory  over  sin  and 
circumstance,  by  redeeming  grace?  Spiritual  tasks 
demand  spiritual  men.  Are  we  facing  the  tasks  of 
the  Kingdom  in  the  spirit  of  the  Kingdom  ?  Have 
we  put  on  the  whole  armour  of  God  ?  We  cannot 
live  the  Christian  life,  or  make  the  Christian  witness 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  FAITH  221 

which  our  day  demands,  on  a  starvation  diet  of  narrow 
views  of  God,  and  anaemic  hopes  of  what  Christ  can 
do  for  us.  To  put  the  question  in  another  way,  are 
we  working  up  to  our  strength  ?  Are  we  facing  the 
tasks  we  ought  to  face?  Is  there  any  Red  Sea  in 
our  experience  ?  Are  we  coming  up  against  any 
insuperable  difficulty?  Have  we  gone  out  to  do 
anything  so  hazardous,  so  big,  that  failure  means  de- 
struction, and  defeat  means  the  loss  of  everything? 
That  is  the  kind  of  task  to  which  God  calls  the 
Church  in  all  the  ages.  He  calls  us  to  attempt  things 
which  are  impossible  on  the  face  of  them,  where 
failure  means  calamity.  But  that  is  just  God's  way 
of  leading  us,  His  way  of  discovering  Himself. 
We  speak  sometimes  of  a  desperate  situation.  That 
is  the  very  kind  of  situation  in  which  the  Church  may 
become  alive  !  When  we  are  on  the  biink  of  despair^ 
we  are  really  on  the  edge  of  a  victo7'ious  faith.  Is  not 
part  of  the  reason  of  our  poverty  this — that  we  have 
not  been  living  on  levels  of  service  where  we  must 
have  God — or  die?  It  is  told  of  a  famous  Edinburgh 
preacher  that  when  he  felt  himself  losing  grip  of  a 
vital  gospel,  he  took  a  walk  through  the  worst  slums 
of  the  city  on  a  Saturday  night.  What  he  saw  there 
sent  him  back  to  his  knees  and  to  his  Bible,  to  explore 
afresh  the  redeeming  reality  of  Jesus. 

Beside  every  impasse  God  stands  till  we  come  up 
to  it,  waiting  to  work  the  miracle,  waiting  to  reveal 
Himself  in  the  endowment  of  power.  God  never 
gives  any  man  power  in  reserve.  We  live  only  by 
the  grace  we  are  forced  to  use.  In  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  Bunyan  puts  this  very  clearly.  Christian 
went  out  at  the  secret  bidding  of  his  soul  with  his 
face  to  the  light,  went  on  till  he  fell  into  a  slough 


22  2  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

that  lay  just  across  the  road ;  and  being  in  it  went  on, 
still  with  his  face  to  the  light,  though  he  could  see  no 
way  of  getting  out.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  did  he 
see  the  stretched-out  hand  of  Help,  who  mysteriously 
came  and  mysteriously  went — none  other  than  the 
Holy  Spirit  Himself.  Only  when  we  face  tasks  in 
His  name  which  put  a  strain  upon  our  faith,  only 
then  will  rise  within  us  the  strength  of  God. 


THE  TROUBLED  LIFE  AND  THE 
UNTROUBLED  HEART 

"Peace  I  leave  with  you,  my  peace  I  give  unto  you.  .  .  .  Let  not 
your  heart  be  troubled." — ^John  xiv.  27. 

The  word  "  peace  "  falls  on  our  ears  to-day  with  the 
sound  of  far-off  music.  For  years  we  have  longed 
and  prayed  for  peace.  To-day  it  seems  farther  off 
than  ever.  The  years  since  the  Armistice  have  been 
the  most  disappointing  years  in  the  last  half-century. 
We  are  living  through  a  time  of  so  many  disillusion- 
ments,  that  hopefulness  has  almost  become  the  kind 
of  thing  of  which  a  good  man  is  half  ashamed.  Miss 
Underbill,  in  an  article  in  the  Hibbert  Journal^ 
describes  the  civilized  world  to-day  as  "  living  under 
a  cloud.  Like  a  neurotic  man  whose  sickness  has  no 
name  and  few  definite  symptoms  beyond  general 
uneasiness  and  loss  of  hope,  it  is  incapable  of  the 
existence  which  it  feels  to  be  wholesome  and  com- 
plete. Impotent  and  uncertain  of  aim,  society  is 
becoming  more  and  more  querulous  and  less  and  less 
reasonable.  Sometimes  it  seeks  violent  and  destruc- 
tive changes  as  the  only  cure  for  its  state.  Some- 
times it  tries  grotesque  and  superstitious  remedies. 
Sometimes  it  relapses  into  apathy."  That  is  a  true 
description  of  the  malady  of  the  age. .    It  is  easy  to 

say  that  we  are  suffering  at  present  from  the  inevit- 

223 


2  24  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

able  reactions  of  war,  and  comfort  ourselves  with 
reading  history.  It  is  true,  that  in  a  sense  we  are 
suffering  from  unhealed  wounds,  and  that  some  day, 
if  we  have  patience,  the  wounds  will  heal  and  we  shall 
recover  our  wonted  buoyancy.  But  unhealed  wounds, 
as  every  surgeon  knows,  are  dangerous.  They  may 
become  septic,  or  make  a  gathering  point  for  a  deep- 
seated  poison  which  is  seeking  some  outlet.  And 
all  the  while  we  are  talking  about  leaving  the  cure  to 
time,  it  may  be  that  deep-seated  poison  in  the  system 
which  needs  to  be  dealt  with  and  got  rid  of,  before 
the  wounds  will  heal  and  the  body  have  peace. 
In  any  case  we  can  be  sure  that  if  the  secret  of 
peace  is  to  be  found,  it  is  Christ  alone  who  has  the 
real  prescription.     The  key  to  peace  is  in  His  hands 

the  peace  of  the  heart  and  the  peace  of  the  world. 

"  Peace  I  leave  with  you,  my  peace  I  give  unto  you. 
Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be 

afraid." 

Now  what  is  the  nature  of  this  peace  of  Christ? 
He  describes  it  as  "  My  peace  ...  not  as  the  world 
giveth."  He  knows,  as  we  all  know,  that  there  are 
various  ways  of  finding  peace.  Some  find  peace  by 
an  escape.  They  run  away  from  the  things  that 
trouble  them.  They  find  means  of  diverting  their 
minds  and  of  insulating  their  lives,  so  that  no  live 
wire  of  outside  trouble  can  bring  any  shock  to  their 
self-centred  system.  There  are  people,  indeed,  who 
contrive  to  take  advantage  of  situations  which  bring 
trouble  to  others.  Never  a  ship  is  wrecked  but  some 
one  will  be  waiting  to  gather  up  the  debris  and  build 
a  house  out  of  it  to  keep  himself  warm  from  the 
storms  in  which  others  go  down.  But,  however  we 
may  find  peace,  no  honourable  man  can  accept  it  at 


THE  TROUBLED  LIFE  225 

the  expense  of  ignoring  the  facts  of  life,  or  sheltering 
himself  against  the  troubles  which  are  threatening 
others.  When  the  world  is  racked  and  bleeding  all 
around  us,  a  true  man  will  even  ask  himself  the 
question  whether  he  has  any  right  to  peace  of  mind 
at  all.  Can  we  take  peace  even  from  the  hands  of 
Christ,  and  be  loyal  to  a  world  in  which  God  has 
made  us  one  family  ?  Dare  we  find  peace,  even  in 
religion,  if  it  means  running  away  from  life  ?  There 
were  many  great  souls  among  those  who  went  into 
the  cloisters  in  olden  days.  They  went  there  to  keep 
the  fire  of  faith  alive  and  to  make  their  protest,  by  a 
holy  life,  against  a  world  grown  so  vicious  that  there 
seemed  little  hope  of  saving  it  from  without.  But  we 
cannot  help  having  the  same  kind  of  feeling  about 
the  man  who  finds  in  devotion  and  prayer  a  selfish 
security  from  wind  and  storm  as  we  would  have  felt 
about  any  of  the  Allies  if  during  the  war  they  had 
made  a  separate  peace.  If  there  is  a  peace  of  God 
for  you  and  me  to-day,  amid  the  trouble  around  us — 
and  this  is  the  offer  of  Christ — it  must  be  a  peace 
which  will  not  drug  our  soul  or  side-track  us  from 
the  main  road  of  the  struggling  world.  It  must  be 
a  peace  within  the  storm,  not  outside  of  the  storm. 
It  must  be  a  peace  which  faces  facts,  not  a  peace 
which  puts  on  blinkers  against  realities. 

It  is  that  kind  of  honourable  peace  which  Christ 
offers  us.  "  My  peace,"  He  said.  Think  for  a  moment 
of  the  circumstances  in  which  the  offer  was  made. 
He  was  at  the  very  storm-centre  of  a  world  seething 
with  hatred  and  unrest.  Black  tempests  were  gather- 
ing around  Him.  He  was  facing  the  ordeal  of  His 
Cross.  He  was  bowed  down  beneath  a  load  of 
suffering  and  grief  and  disappointment  which  nearly 

15 


2  26  THE  VICTORY   OF  GOD 

crushed  Hiir;.  He  was  hiding  nothing  of  it  all  from 
Himself.  Even  on  the  Cross,  He  refused  the  myrrh 
which  would  have  soothed  His  senses  and  clouded 
His  mind.  Browning  catches  the  kind  of  spirit  in 
which  He  faced  death: 

I  would  hate  that  death  bandaged  my  eyes,  and  forbore, 

And  bade  me  creep  past. 

No,  let  me  taste  the  whole  of  it. 

Even  religion  was  no  opiate  for  Jesus.  There  is  no 
wai  rant  in  Christ  for  the  charge  which  the  Bolshevists 
are  said  to  make  against  Christianity,  that  "  religion  is 
the  opium  of  the  poor."  Out  of  that  very  maelstrom 
which  was  sucking  Him  down  to  death,  He  spoke  of 
His  peace. 

What,  then,  is  His  peace?  True  peace  is  the 
harmony  between  our  nature  and  our  environment. 
Unrest  comes  from  a  clash  between  a  man's  nature 
and  the  world  in  which  he  lives.  But  here  is  the 
point.  Our  true  environment  is  spiritual.  If  there 
is  conflict  in  our  souls,  it  is  because  we  have  chosen  to 
live  in  a  narrow  world  in  which  there  is  no  room  for 
our  souls  to  find  freedom.  There  is  a  Will  that  beats 
through  everything,  a  Mind  that  thinks  in  everything, 
a  Heart  that  loves  through  everything.  When  we  are 
in  accord  with  God,  we  find  peace.  How  can  a  man 
be  at  peace  whose  being  is  out  of  tune  with  the 
nature  of  things,  whose  will  is  at  cross  purposes  with 
God?  As  well  expect  health  in  a  body  where  all 
the  physical  laws  are  broken.  Track  down  the 
unrest  of  our  time,  whether  it  shows  itself  in  classes 
or  in  individuals,  and  you  find  friction  between  the 
souls  of  men  and  the  nature  of  things,  which  is  the 


THE  TROUBLED  LIFE  227 

will  of  God.  This  unrest  may  show  itself  in  various 
ways.  It  may  appear  in  a  constant  strain,  in  the 
jarring  machinery  of  industry,  in  hollow  dissatisfac- 
tion which  keeps  us  ever  seeking  and  never  finding, 
— in  restless  activities  which  wear  us  out  and  achieve 
nothing.  Many  people  are  like  a  clock  which  has 
lost  its  pendulum.  You  wind  it  up  and  off  it  goes 
at  a  furious  pace  of  whirring  wheels  which  is  soon 
finished  and  played  out.  But  attach  the  pendulum, 
and  the  result  is  a  movement  which  is  peace — stable, 
restful,  calm,  purposeful.  What  has  happened? 
The  law  of  gravitation  has  come  into  play — the  law 
which  rules  the  resistless  tides  of  ocean,  and  guides 
the  majestic  stars  in  their  courses.  The  little  clock 
with  its  feverish  heart  has  been  taken  up  into  that 
mighty  movement  and  there  is  peace.  That  is  what 
our  lives  need.  They  need  to  be  linked  on  to  God. 
There  is  inner  conflict,  because  the  deepest  and  most 
vital  instinct  of  our  nature  is  being  repressed — the 
instinct  for  the  divine.  We  are  born  to  take  our 
part  in  a  movement  which  is  far  larger  than  ourselves. 
While  our  lives  are  moving  in  the  orbit  of  selfishness 
there  is  sure  to  be  confusion.  There  was  no  shadow 
between  Christ  and  God.  There  was  perfect  under- 
standing between  Him  and  His  Father,  and  where 
there  are  no  shadows  between  a  man  and  God,  no 
earthly  troubles  can  break  this  deep  and  final  peace 
of  the  spirit ;  and  out  of  that  peace  comes  power  to 
meet  whatever  life  may  bring.  It  is  this  peace  He 
offers  to  us  all,  the  peace  of  a  heart  at  rest  in  God. 
"  Peace  I  leave  with  you,  My  peace  I  give  unto 
you." 

How  did  this  harmony  with  God  show  itself?     Let 
us  look  into  the  nature  of  this  peace  more  in  detail. 


22  8  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

In  the  first  place,  it  showed  itself  in  a  divine  valuation 
of  life,  which  puts  things  in  their  true  perspective. 
That  valuation  set  Christ  beyond  the  reach  of  many 
of  the  things  which  trouble  us.  Loss  of  property,  for 
instance,  did  not  trouble  Him,  or  the  fear  of  it,  for 
He  set  no  store  by  money  for  its  own  sake.  The 
scorn  of  men  or  the  withdrawal  of  their  esteem  did 
not  trouble  Him,  for  He  set  no  value  on  the  smile  of 
popular  favour.  It  is  a  wrong  valuation  of  the  good 
of  life,  which  creates  much  of  our  unrest  and  lays  us 
open  to  the  torment  of  fear.  "  The  love  of  money," 
says  the  apostle,  "  is  the  root  of  all  evil,"  and  among 
its  evils  he  shrewdly  puts  his  finger  on  this,  that  the 
man  who  sets  out  to  be  rich  falls  into  many  a  snare 
and  pierces  his  heart  through  with  many  sorrows. 
The  more  we  sink  our  roots  into  the  earth,  the  more 
our  lives  are  shaken  with  every  tremor  of  passing 
earthquakes.  The  more  we  become  dependent  on 
material  things,  the  more  we  are  exposing  our  hearts 
to  anxiety  and  disappointment  and  all  the  things 
which  bring  dispeace.  One  reason  why  some 
people  are  so  dangerous  to  the  country  to-day  is  that 
they  have  nothing  to  lose  by  a  violent  upheaval. 
There  are  few  sensitive  points  at  which  discomfort 
and  loss  can  touch  them.  The  man  who  is  thus 
detached  is  in  a  strong  position.  That  was  part  of 
the  strength  of  the  early  Church;  she  had  nothing  to 
lose.  And  the  world  will  only  be  set  right  by  men 
who  value  principles  above  possessions,  who  are 
detached  enough  from  the  treasures  of  earth  to  be 
undeterred  from  righteousness  by  the  pistol  point  of 
life's  ills.  The  man  who  has  accepted  Christ's  values 
is  free.  There  are  troubles  he  discounts  at  the  very 
start.     There  are  events  which  never   cause  him  a 


I 

THE  TROUBLED  LIFE  229 

tremor  of  fear.  He  has  not  staked  his  life  on 
possessions,  or  position,  or  popularity,  or  any  of 
these  shifting  foundations.  He  has  sunk  the  base  of 
his  Hfe  down  to  the  solid  rock.  He  wants  what 
Christ  wants,  and  sees  that  that  is  best.  What  care 
we  give  ourselves  by  pinning  our  life's  success  to  the 
little  things  instead  of  the  big  things,  to  the  accidents 
instead  of  the  essentials !  The  great  Dr.  Chalmers 
made  a  speech  to  the  Assembly  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  about  ministerial  training  in  which  he  gave 
the  story  of  his  own  changed  mind.  He  had  been 
a  distinguished  student  of  mathematics  in  his  day; 
but  that  was  poor  preparation  for  a  preacher  of  the 
gospel.  "  Strangely  blinded  was  I/'  he  said.  "  What 
is  the  object  of  mathematical  science?  Magnitude 
and  the  proportion  of  magnitude.  But  then,  sir,  I 
had  forgotten  two  magnitudes,  the  littleness  of  time 
and  the  greatness  of  eternity."  It  is  the  eternal 
values  which  make  life  great,  and  fill  it  with  joy  and 
satisfaction.  Peace  is  the  possession  of  the  heart 
which  has  found  the  secret  of  reality  in  Jesus,  and  is 
lifted  above  the  cruel  mercy  of  life's  tides  of  fortune 
or  favour.  "  Peace  I  leave  with  you.  My  peace  I 
give  unto  you.  .  .  .  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled." 
But  again,  Christ's  peace  was  rooted  in  a  right 
relation  to  men,  a  relation  which  sprang  from  His 
oneness  with  God.  If  a  man  is  really  one  with 
God,  that  harmony  will  make  itself  felt  in  a  right 
attitude  to  men.  Much  of  our  dispeace  comes  from 
a  wrong  attitude  to  others.  The  dark  heart  of  the 
world's  unrest  to-day  is  full  of  such  things  as  hatred, 
suspicion,  jealousy,  spite,  contempt  of  man  for  man. 
These  are  the  ingredients  of  the  devil's  cauldron 
which  brews  the  deadly  spirit.     There  is  no  peace  in 


230  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

any  heart  till  it  is  emptied  of  these  or  lifted  above 
their  reach. 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  thing  to  be  hated,  but  the  dis- 
peace  comes  when  that  hatred  is  allowed  to  stir  the 
dust  of  our  own  passion.  We  lose  our  peace — not 
when  others  hate  us,  if  there  is  no  lurking  suspicion 
that  it  has  been  deserved ;  we  lose  our  peace 
when  we  hate  others.  To  hate  another,  or  suspect 
another  or  despise  another,  is  the  root  of  dispeace  in 
our  own  hearts.  It  spoils  our  own  spirit;  it  opens 
the  door  to  a  perfect  storm  of  unrest.  That  was,  in 
part,  what  Christ  meant  when  He  spoke  of  loving  our 
enemies.  He  knew  that  there  is  nothing  so  fatal  to 
peace  as  the  spirit  of  hatred  and  revenge.|  Look  at 
Christ  lipon  His  Cross.  When  their  hatred  was 
seething  round  Him,  at  the  very  moment  when  He 
was  being  overwhelmed.  He  cried,  "  Father,  forgive 
them."  There  was  no  dispeace  in  His  soul.  No 
man  was  ever  so  bad  but  Christ  could  love  him, 
none  so  evil  but  Christ  could  find  a  reason  for  pity- 
ing him.  Taunts  and  criticism  drew  from  Him 
nothing  but  compassion.  The  worse  people  were, 
the  more  they  were  in  need  of  God.  The  more  they 
hated,  the  more  they  were  in  need  of  love  and  guid- 
ino-.  They  were  sheep  that  had  gone  astray,  or  had 
been  led  astray,  and  the  cruelties  which  they  were 
heaping  on  His  poor  body  were  really  wounds  they 
were  making  in  their  own  souls.  They  stabbed  His 
heart  with  the  spear,  but  they  could  not  break  His 
peace,  because  they  could  not  change  His  love. 

Part  of  the  secret  of  peace  is  this  loving  attitude 
towards  others,  "  Fret  not  thyself  about  evildoers," 
says  the  Psalmist.  Do  not  let  the  wrongs  of  others 
overthrow  the  balance  of  your  own  soul.     Say  the 


ItiE  TROUBLED  LIFE  231 

worst  you  can  about  the  things  men  do,  there  is 
always  something  about  a  man  if  we  could  see 
him  with  the  eyes  of  Christ,  which  would  draw  tears 
of  compassion  instead  of  curses  of  anger.  And 
these  tears  in  the  long  run  will  break  down  barriers, 
which  are  armour-plated  against  the  thunderbolts  of 
wrath.  All  the  great  souls  have  had  this  love,  this 
forbearing  outlook  on  others,  and  it  has  kept  them 
strong  amid  a  thousand  peering  littlenesses.  You 
remember  the  oft-quoted  speech  of  Lincoln,  just  after 
his  second  election  as  President.  Things  had  been 
said  and  done  that  would  have  broken  many  a  man's 
heart.  The  country  was  bleeding  from  civil  war. 
But  it  never  broke  Lincoln's  peace,  for  his  own 
attitude  was  right.  "  With  malice  toward  none,  with 
charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God 
gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the 
work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds" — 
including,  of  course,  those  of  their  enemies — "  to  care 
for  the  widow  and  the  orphan,  to  do  all  that  may 
achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  for  our- 
selves and  all  mankind."  There  is  no  pettiness  there, 
no  bitterness,  no  grudge.  And  that  spirit  of  peace, 
Christ's  peace,  can  reign  even  in  such  a  day  as  this. 

But  how  does  this  peace  come  ?  It  comes  from  a 
perfect  surrender  and  response  to  the  love  of  God  in 
all  its  challenge  and  all  its  security.  And  the  love 
of  God  is  a  challenging  thing.  The  love  of  God,  if 
we  take  it  in,  throws  our  souls  open  to  the  assault 
of  countless  needs  and  ills,  and  to  a  tempest  of 
rebuke  We  have  made  too  much  of  religion  as  a 
safety  device  for  the  soul,  too  much  of  it  as  a  quiet 
haven  of  rest  into  which  we  retire  and  find  peace. 
The   price   of  Christ's  peace  is  war.      The   cost   of 


2  32  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

Christ's  rest  is  struggle.  "  My  peace,"  said  Christ, 
*' I  give  to  you."  What  lives  the  disciples  led  after 
that  gift  !  There  was  scarcely  a  day  when  they  were 
free  from  trouble.  It  was  the  condition  of  their 
peace.  Had  they  stayed  in  the  cloister,  like  the 
monk  in  the  story  when  the  world's  need  rapped  at 
the  door,  instead  of  moving  out  to  the  challenge  of 
love,  they  would  have  lost  the  gift  by  cultivating  it. 

The  honourable  peace  which  this  utter  surrender 
to  the  love  of  God  brings  is  thus  a  twofold  thing. 
It  calls  us  to  battle.  There  is  no  peace  we  can 
accept  for  ourselves  so  long  as  the  world  is  full  of 
the  sin  and  suffering  which  make  the  lives  of  others 
unhealthy  and  unholy.  There  is  no  rest  from  mortal 
fight  for  any  of  us  so  long  as  our  hearts  are  tainted 
with  selfishness  and  pride.  For  the  man  who  loves 
with  the  love  of  Jesus,  and  who  enters  into  an  alliance 
with  Him,  there  is  no  languorous  ease,  no  sheltered 
garden  where  he  can  slink  out  of  the  dust  and  heat. 
The  love  of  God  is  a  tide  which  will  carry  us  out 
into  the  lives  of  others,  and  give  us  over  to  the  throb 
of  the  world's  agony. 

But  it  means  moving  out  too,  in  response  to  the 
assurance  of  God's  love.  The  security  which  God 
gives  is  the  assurance  that  He  will  never  see  us 
beaten.  We  shall  be  equal  to  every  situation  into 
which  love  may  bring  us.  There  is  no  dilemma  into 
which  faith  carries  us  but  there  will  be  a  way  out. 
There  is  no  trouble  which  meets  us,  if  we  have  com- 
mitted our  lives  to  this  love,  which  shall  not  turn  to 
our  advantage  as  His  children. 

Is  there  any  calm  like  the  calm  of  resting  in  this 
almighty  love?  It  is  the  peace  of  the  full  river, 
glorious,  unresting  yet   unhurried.      It  is   the   deep 


THE  TROUBLED  LIFE  233 

assurance   that   love   will   conquer  in    the  end,  and 
already,  through  the  victory  of  Christ,  the  situation  is 
in  the  control  of  those  pierced  hands.     Stevenson  s 
grandfather  tells  of  an  incident  when  the  Bell  Rock 
Lighthouse   was   building.      The    boat   which    held 
the  workers  was  moored  near  the  rock  when  a  violent 
storm  arose.     The  danger  was  lest  the  mooring-rope 
should  break  and  the  boat  be  carried  out  to  sea,  or 
smashed  to  pieces  against  the  rock.     For  many  hours 
they   were   in    jeopardy,    while   the    passengers   sat 
trembling  in   the   cabin  unable  to   venture  on  deck 
for  the  heavy  seas,  and    knowing  nothing  of  what 
was  going  on  around  them,  but  fearing  the  worst. 
Then'' a  little  boy,  who  afterwards  related  the  story, 
crept  up  on  deck  and  there  he  saw  what  dissipated 
all   his   fears.     The   storm  seemed,   to   his  eyes,   as 
bad    as   ever,  but   on   the  deck  lashed   to   his   post 
stood   the  watchman— and   there  was  a  smile  upon 
his  face.     That  smile  of  victory  changed  the  whole 
situation,   and    brought   back    peace.      There   amid 
our  troubles  is  our  only  secret  of  peace.     Through 
the  storm  we  may  catch  in  Christ  the  smile  upon  the 
Captain's  face,  and  know  that  all  is  wel^  with  the 
ship,  if  only  we  are  faithful.     God'sjoye  knows  no 
eclipse  except  through  our  own  fears  and  faithless- 
ness.    No  storm  can  sink  the  boat  which  has  Christ 
on  board.     You  remember  the  story  of  Christ  and 
the  disciples  upon  the  lake  ;  how  they  trembled  and 
gave  themselves  over  to  panic   as  the  great  waves 
lashed  the  sides  of  the  boat  and  the  whole  sea  raged 
in   conflict.      He   rose   and    stilled    the    storm,   the 
I     Scripture  tells  us.     But  it  was  not  His  highest  way  of 
I     giving  them  peace.     It  was  not  the  way  He  would 
'     have  preferred.     He  would   rather  they  had  trusted 


234  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 


Him  enough  for  the  storm  within  to  be  stilled,  while 
they  struggled  with  oars  and  sails  to  bring  the  boat 
to  harbour.     That  is  the  true  figure  of  God's  peace, 
the   heart   at   peace  amid    the   storm,  knowing   the 
presence  of  Christ,  sure  of  victory,  and  in  the  power '^ 
of    that    peace    struggling    and    fighting    to    bring' 
the  vessel  through.     That  is  the  kind  of  peace  He 
gives  through  the  surrender  to  a  great  love.     The 
early  Church  had  it.      Listen,  "Troubled  on   every 
side,    but    not    distressed ;    perplexed,   but    not    in 
despair;  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed;   dying,  and 
behold  we  live;  having  nothing,  yet  possessing  all 
things."      That  is   the   peace    Christ    gives   through 
^  faith  in  Him  and  fellowship  with  Him,  and  that  is 
^:^-'''  the  peace  we  are  called  to  reach  and  make  our  own 
J^       to-day — the  only   kind   of  honourable   peace.      We 
reach  it  through  a  faith  that  rests  on  the  resources  of 
our  amazing  Lord,  while  we  follow  Him  out  to  battle. 
It  is  to  that  toiling,  suffering,  invincible  faith  that 
Christ  calls  us— not  to  the  faith  that  confuses  peace 
with  ease  and  the  untroubled  life.     His  peace  is  found 
in  a  service  and  a  fellowship  which  gives  us  together 
the  troubled  life  and  the  untroubled  heart. 

I  ask  no  heaven,  till  earth  be  Thine, 

No  glory-crown  while  work  of  mine  remaineth  here. 

When  earth  shall  shine  among  the  stars. 

Her  sins  wiped  out,  her  captives  free — 

Her  voice  a  music  unto  Thee — 

For  crown,  more  work  give  Thou  to  me, 

Lord,  hsre  am  I. 


WHEN  THE  BROOK  DRIES  UP 

.«  And  it  came  to  pass,  after  a  while,  that  the  brook  dried  up,  because 
there  had  been  no  rain  in  the  land.  And  the  word  of  the  Lord  came 
unto  Elijah,  saving,  Arise,  get  thee  to  Zarephath,  which  belongeth  to 
Z^on,  and  dwell  there:  behold,  I  have  commanded  a  widow  woman 
there  to  sustain  thee."— i  Kings  xvu.  7-9- 

WE  know  very  little  of  the  life-story  of  some  of  the 
greatest  prophets.     They  often  spring  full-armed,  as  it 
were,  into  the  light,  to  flash  their  message  in  a  dramatic 
way  on   the  situation   which   has   summoned  them. 
Here  and  there  the   curtain  is  lifted  and  we  get  a 
glimpse  behind  the  scenes,  where  God  is  training  them 
for  the  role  they  are  to  play  in  the  limelight.     Part 
of  that  training-ground  is  generally  a  desert.     Moses 
heard  his  call  in  a  desert.     Amos  was  a  herdsman 
from  the  hills.     John  the  Baptist  nourished  his  soul 
in  those  lonely  quiet  spaces.     Jesus  Himself  was  led 
of  the  Spirit   into  the  wilderness,  to  find    His  way 
through  the  populous  world.     And  it  came  to  pass 
that  God  said   to  Elijah,  "Go,  hide  thyself  by  the 
brook   Cherith."     There  is  a  revelation  that  comes 
through  silence,  clearer  and  deeper  than  all  speech. 
There^  is   a   companionship   we   meet    in    lonehness 
which  no  human  friend  can  give.     We  reach  it  only 
when  we  are  "  alone  with  the  Alone."     The  man  who 
would  be  of  most  use  to  men  must  know  what  it  is 
to  be  led  away  from  mep.     Before  we  can  become  a 

21  e 


2  36  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

live  wire  of  God's  communications  we  must  find  our 
own  deep  contact  with  Himself. 

This  desert  experience  of  Elijah  was  unusual.  It 
was  complicated  with  famine,  in  whose  relentless  grip 
the  land  was  slowly  dying-.  How  or  why  this  famine 
came  the  Scripture  does  not  dogmatize,  though  it 
suggests  a  connection  with  Ahab's  disloyalty  to  God. 
Famine  is  a  periodic  visitor  to  the  East,  where  parch- 
ing drought  is  one  of  the  dreaded  foes  of  nature. 
The  important  thing  is  not  its  cause  but  its  message, 
for  everything  has  a  message  for  the  ear  that  is  tuned 
to  catch  life's  meaning  in  God. 

There  was  a  message  in  it  for  Ahab.  Elijah's 
business  was  to  help  him  to  read  it.  It  was  to  bid 
him  thihk  deeply  and  see  if  this  calamity  was  not 
finding  him  out  in  a  wrong  relation  to  God.  Christ 
has  taught  us  better  than  to  look  at  calamities  of 
nature  as  the  vengeance  of  an  offended  God  dealing 
out  disaster.  But  calamities  have  their  place.  They 
can  startle  us  and  make  us  think,  and  perchance 
bring  home  to  us  some  sin  or  moral  twist,  or  reveal 
some  deep  dispeace  of  our  souls,  which  was  hidden 
from  us  under  the  placid  waters  of  our  life.  Why  is 
it  when  a  great  earthquake  swallows  up  a  city,  or  a 
mighty  ship  goes  down,  or  a  world-war  sweeps 
nations  into  its  vortex,  the  first  thing  people  do  is  to 
ask  questions  about  God?  Some  of  them  get  no 
further,  but  even  that  is  significant.  It  is  the  emerg- 
ence into  life  of  the  fact  of  God.  That  is  part  of 
every  man's  consciousness,  though  often  sunk  fathoms 
deep  under  a  load  of  trivial  interests,  and  it  only 
needs  something  big  enough  to  stir  the  depths,  for  this 
thought  of  God  to  be  released  and  bring  us  face  to  face 
with  Him.     But  some  people  do  go  farther.     They 


WHEN  THE  BROOK  DRIES  UP        237 

begin  to  think  not  only  of  God  but  of  themselves. 
When  that  happens,  the  central  question  of  life  is  up 
for  settlement — the  question  of  our  relation  with  God. 
The  secret  of  all  rightness  lies  there.  Nothing  is 
ever  right  for  any  man  who  is  not  right  with  God. 

In  the  desert,  amid  the  tightening  grip  of  famine, 
God  was  speaking  to  Elijah.  Part  of  the  message 
was  the  loving  care  of  God.  "  Get  thee  hence,  and 
hide  thyself  by  the  brook  Cherith ;  and  thou  shalt 
drink  of  the  brook ;  and  I  have  commanded  the 
ravens  to  feed  thee  there."  So  far  so  good.  But  it 
came  to  pass,  after  a  while,  that  the  brook  dried  up, 
because  there  was  no  rain  in  the  land.  What  about 
the  care  of  God  now?  That  was  what  Elijah  was 
going  to  learn.  And  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  to 
him,  saying,  "Arise,  get  thee  to  Zarephath,  which 
belongeth  to  Zidon,  and  dwell  there :  behold,  I  have 
commanded  a  widow  woman  there  to  sustain  thee." 
Elijah  obeyed  the  message,  and  then  follows  that 
remarkable  story  of  the  barrel  of  meal  and  the  cruse 
of  oil  which  never  failed,  till  rain  fell  on  the  burnt-up 
pasture,  and  life  held  out  a  full  hand  once  more  to 
the  starving  nation. 

Now,  what  had  this  experience  to  say  to  Elijah  ? 
It  was  a  message,  surely,  of  the  need  of  deeper 
resources  than  the  surface  world  can  supply,  and  of 
the  call  to  trust  them.  Living  by  the  brook  Cherith, 
drinking  its  waters,  and  fed  by  the  ravens  was  one 
stage  of  existence — the  natural  stage.  These  were 
the  direct  and  simple  supplies  of  the  earth.  In  a 
sense  he  depended  on  nature  for  his  security ;  though 
nature,  for  Elijah,  was  never  less  than  God's  hand  at 
work.  He  had  won  the  secret  of  life,  which  is  to  see 
God  everywhere ;  the  sable  wings  of  the  birds  bring- 


238  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

ing  food  had  the  glint  of  angel  pinions.  But  the 
brook  dried  up.  What  did  it  mean  ?  His  eyes 
were  to  be  opened  further  to  the  ingenuity  of  God's 
love.  His  faith  was  to  be  quickened  into  deeper 
levels  of  dependence.  The  anchor  of  his  trust  was  to 
be  cast  into  a  deeper  ocean  of  God's  care.  "  Arise, 
go  to  Zarephath  ...  for  I  have  commanded  a  widow 
woman  there  to  sustain  thee."  God  was  going  to 
use  a  finer  instrument,  but  one  less  apparently 
dependable — a  starving  woman's  faith  and  love.  Is 
there  any  one  who,  on  the  surface,  would  have  given 
much  for  it  ?  Faith  and  love  are  the  biggest  things 
in  the  world  for  a  man  who  has  seen  Jesus,  but  they 
seem  frail  indeed  in  the  face  of  famine.  There  is 
nothing  like  hunger  to  take  all  that  is  fine  out  of  the 
heart.  It  can  reduce  people  to  the  jungle  level,  and 
especially  a  mother  watching  the  red  glow  of  health 
die  out  of  her  children's  cheeks.  But  Elijah  trusted 
God's  guiding,  and  went  to  make  his  strange  request. 
He  is  almost  ashamed  to  make  the  appeal.  He 
brings  it  in  as  a  kind  of  after-thought.  Yet  the 
woman  rises  to  the  appeal  of  faith  and  love  which 
somehow  Elijah  awoke  in  her,  and  brought  him  into 
a  little  fellowship  in  which  the  problem  was  solved 
and  the  famine  was  kept  at  bay.  The  secret  is  that 
through  faith  and  love  they  had  made  a  circle  through 
which  God  could  work. 

It  seems  to  me  there  is  a  message  here  for  us  even 
about  the  material  problems  of  our  life.  There  are 
crises  which  can  never  be  met,  save  as  we  meet  them 
in  fellowship,  where  faith  and  love  are  brought  into 
play.  Take  the  famine  at  our  doors,  for  instance. 
The  word  is  unreal  to  most  of  us,  perhaps.  It  is  the 
most  real  word  to  thousands  in  Europe  and  in  our 


WHEN  THE  BROOK  DRIES  UP       239 

own  land  at  this  moment.  It  stares  them  in  the  face 
in  letters  red-hot  with  agony.  The  loudest  voice  in 
all  Europe  to-day  is  the  echo  of  this  woman's  hoarse 
cry,  "  I  have  but  an  handful  of  meal  in  a  barrel :  and, 
behold,  I  am  gathering  two  sticks,  that  I  may  go  in 
and  dress  it  for  me  and  my  son,  that  we  may  eat  it, 
and  die."  What  are  we  to  make  of  such  problems  ? 
It  will  not  do  to  say  they  are  extraordinary,  and 
leave  it  at  that.  Times  of  depression  come,  like  these 
recurrent  famines  in  Israel,  but  we  have  not  won  the 
power  to  manage  our  common  life  till  we  have  won 
the  mastery  over  these.  Scientific  skill  has  found 
the  way  to  counter  Nature  in  many  of  her  wild 
moods.  But  this  and  other  kindred  problems  demand 
something  more  than  scientific  skill  or  human  dexter- 
ity. They  are  human  problems,  rising  out  of  the 
life  we  live  together.  And  the  message  of  this  story 
is  that  they  cannot  be  solved  save  by  faith  and  love. 
As  a  writer  puts  it,  "  The  only  possible  advance  in  a 
world  like  this  is  by  ways  which  are  only  open  to 
faith  and  love."  Nothing  will  meet  the  complexities 
of  our  modern  world  but  the  deeper  qualities  of  our 
nature  called  into  play  and  working  in  fellowship. 
That  is  the  message  which  is  ringing  through  our 
land  to-day,  and  we  are  all  coming  to  see  it.  All 
sorts  of  people,  disillusioned  and  baffled  by  selfish- 
ness and  brought  to  a  standstill,  are  demanding  a 
new  adventure  of  goodwill  and  industry — the  spirit 
which  sees  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  man's  own  narrow 
life  into  the  lives  of  others.  What  many  people  do 
not  see,  who  are  afraid  to  launch  out,  is  that  this 
faith  and  love  are  more  than  the  ingenuity  of  our 
baffled  wits.  They  are  the  impulses  of  the  Spirit 
offering  to  us  the  resources  of  God. 


240  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

But  the  incident  applies  to  other  spheres  of  our 
life.  Take  our  human  affections,  and  the  love  which 
makes  life  rich.  People  find  their  happiness  in  each 
other's  company  and  set  up  a  home  together.  They 
have  common  interests ;  the  world  is  good  to  them ; 
and  life  goes  along  smoothly  and  pleasantly  for  a 
while.  But  the  time  comes  when  things  are  more 
difficult.  They  have  to  meet  strain  together,  or 
health  is  not  so  robust  and  tempers  become  peevish, 
or  the  surface  attractions  fade.  They  come  to 
the  end  of  the  temporary  and  often  shallow  things 
which  first  drew  them  together.  The  brook  dries 
up.  What  happens  then?  They  drift  apart,  it 
may  be  keeping  a  brave  face  to  the  world  while  the 
home  is  starving  in  a  famine  of  love.  We  can  see  it 
happening  in  case  after  case  around  us  to-day.  We 
call  it  misunderstanding,  or  a  misfit,  and  the  human 
problem  becomes  the  subject  of  Royal  Commissions 
and  the  theme  of  the  realistic  novel  or  the  shallow 
play.  But  the  real  root  of  the  trouble  is  spiritual. 
There  are  plenty  of  lives  which  have  come  to  strain 
and  friction,  and  then  have  found  the  way  c  ut  in 
deeper  levels  of  living  and  finer  springs  of  a  love 
which  is  real.  Love  and  friendship  are  of  God,  and 
they  cannot  be  sustained  apart  from  Him  and  the 
faith  and  unselfishness,  which  are  the  deeper  currents 
of  our  being.  You  cannot  make  a  home  anything 
more  than  a  glorified  lodging-house,  except  as  it  is 
built  upon  the  foundations  of  trust  and  self-sacrifice. 
You  cannot  found  a  friendship  which  will  last,  on  any- 
thing less  than  trust  and  forgiveness  and  goodwill — 
those  gifts  which  have  their  origin  in  God.  As  Lord 
Rosebery  says,  in  his  studies  of  the  great  men  of  the 
last  century,  "The  base  of  everything  is  character"; 


WHEN  THE  BROOK  DRIES  UP        241 

and  all  character  is  rooted  and  grounded  in  some 
vision  of  God,  deep  enough  and  strong  enough  to 
carry  us  over  those  unlit  patches  when  life  grows 
weary,  and  the  surface  motives  fail,  and  the  brooks  of 
self-interest  dry  up. 

The  same  thing  holds  true  of  service  and  philan- 
thropy. It  is  easy  enough  to  be  kind  and  charitable 
when  things  are  going  well.  There  are  moods  when 
a  kindly  spirit  seems  to  be  in  the  air.  We  become 
well-disposed  to  other  people ;  we  long  to  help  the 
under-dog  ;  social  service  becomes  the  fashion.  But 
dull  times  come.  People  we  try  to  help  grow  un- 
interesting, sometimes  disagreeable;  it  may  be  they 
turn  and  rend  us.  This  may  not  be  mere  ingratitude ; 
there  is  a  root  of  independence  about  most  people 
which  sometime  or  other  makes  them  resent  favours. 
They  kick  against  the  necessity  which  brings  them 
to  need  our  help,  and  we  get  the  brunt  of  it.  But 
sometimes  it  is  sheer  blindness  to  our  motive  and  our 
goodwill.  The  very  people  for  whom  Christ  poured 
out  His  heart's  blood  turned  at  last  to  crucify  Him. 
He  had  a  time  of  popularity  when  they  gathered 
about  Him  with  cheers  and  wanted  to  make  Him 
king.  But  the  brook  dried  up.  What  then  ? 
Have  we  ever  had  that  experience  ?  Have  we  ever 
sought  to  help  men  who  turned  on  us  with  base 
reproaches  ?  What  then  ?  Had  we  resources  enough 
to  carry  us  through  ?  Have  we  the  kind  of  stamina 
which  will  keep  us  going  on,  helping  people  who  hate 
us  and  misunderstand  us  and  would  even  crucify  us, 
if  it  were  the  kind  of  thing  which  is  done  to-day  ? 
No  man  can  do  Christ's  service  to  men  without 
His  own  deep  resources.  Only  the  hands  which 
are  willing  to  be  pierced  and  go  on  helping,  can 
16 


242  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

touch  the  human  sore  with  heah'ng.  And  for  that 
we  need  His  compassion,  His  love,  His  fellow- 
ship. The  best  of  human  unselfishness  is  not  proof 
against  the  kind  of  thing  which  crucifies — either  by 
the  recoil  of  ingratitude,  or  the  bitter  insight  into 
life's  appalling  pain  and  need.  The  most  kindly- 
human  temper  will  not  serve  in  the  hour  of  dis- 
appointment when  the  brook  of  man's  faith  in  man 
dries  up. 

The  same  is   true   of  what   we   usually   call   the 
Christian  life.     There  are   moments  when  it  seems 
easy  enough  to  follow  Christ.     We  have  resources  in 
ourselves  for  what  it  seems  Christ  wants  us  to  do. 
The  example    of  others   or  the   common  decencies 
of  life  caVry  us  through   the   ordinary  temptations. 
When  the  kindly  faces  are  round  us,  it  is  not  so 
difficult  to  be  true.     And  we  read  of  the  agony  of 
the  saints  and  their  cries  to  God  and  all  the  extrava- 
gant language  of  the  New  Testament  with  amaze- 
ment.    What  does  Paul  mean  when  he  pleads  with 
men  to  "  put  on  the  whole  armour  of  God."     What 
can  it  mean  to  "  resist  unto  blood  "  ?     Does  all  this 
language  not  seem  a  little  hectic  and  strained  ?     But 
the  brooks  dry  up.     What  then  ?     When  things  go 
against  us,  and  the  kindly  faces  are  gone,  or  when 
we  go  to  a  strange  land  or  some  great  city,  where  we 
are  flung  into  a  maelstrom  of  unbelief,  and  things  we 
were  taught  to  hate  begin  to  speak  to  dim  instincts 
in  the  blood,  and  there  is  a  quiet  smile  for  the  man 
who  takes  religion  seriously,  what  then?     Or  when 
we  come  up  against  the  cruel  facts  of  life  and  our 
faith  begins  to  burst  into  question  marks,  what  then  ? 
When  we  begin  to  see  what  faith  really  means  and 
some  big  call  to  sacrifice  meets  us,  clear  as  the  dawn, 


WHEN  THE  BROOK  DRIES  UP        243 

and  red  and  cold  with  warnings  of  a  troubled  day, 
what  then  ?  Or  when  some  wind  strips  off  the  fair 
garment  of  our  own  good  opinion  and  we  see  our- 
selves with  all  our  hypocrisy  laid  bare  before  the 
challenging  eyes  of  Christ,  and  the  shelters  of  our 
pride  are  down,  what  then?  Then  we  must  strike 
deeper  into  the  resources  of  our  faith,  or  perish.  We 
must  explore  the  knowledge  of  God,  or  die.  We 
must  find  a  vision  of  God  big  enough  to  meet  the 
big  problems  or  make  us  willing  to  accept  perplexi- 
ties. We  must  face  the  question  whether  Christ  is 
a  reality  we  can  trust  all  the  way.  We  must  find 
that  love  which  is  a  refuge  not  from  the  storm,  but 
from  our  own  fears  and  our  own  ease-loving  hearts, 
and  trust  Him  with  all  the  abandon  of  faith.  We 
must  make  a  new  venture  in  the  life  of  prayer.  The  / 
Christian  life  is  a  miracle  or  it  is  nothing ;  it  is  a  new  • 
creation,  ever  renewed  and  renewing  itself  in  God ;  it 
is  a  "  root  out  of  a  dry  ground,"  as  the  prophet  said 
of  God's  Servant.  You  cannot  explain  it,  or  sustain 
it,  through  any  mere  contact  with  its  environment. 
There  are  plants  that  can  live  through  a  drought  in  a 
desert.  They  have  various  ways  of  doing  it.  Some 
of  them  live  by  holding  in  their  leaves  or  surface 
roots  enough  sap  to  carry  them  over  an  average  time 
of  drought ;  nature  is  wonderfully  ingenious  in  its 
mechanism  for  meeting  the  struggle  of  life.  But 
some  of  them  have  no  such  visible  resources,  and  men 
wonder  how  they  live  at  all.  Their  secret  is  that 
their  roots  go  down  twenty  and  thirty  feet,  or  more, 
and  tap  some  perennial  spring  hidden  in  the  crevices 
of  the  strata.  No  blight  or  drought  above  can  reach 
their  foundations.  They  are  in  contact,  so  to  speak, 
with  the  very  basis  of  the  world.     That  is  the  way 


244  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

with  the  life  of  a  Christian  man  ;  it  is  a  hidden  life, 
"  hid  with  Christ  in  God." 

Time  and  again  the  Church  has  come  to  live  a 
surface  life  and  to  rely  upon  prestige,  or  power,  or 
her  standing  in  man's  favour.  Then  has  her  real 
power  decayed.  It  was  a  poor  boast  which  one  of 
the  Popes  made  once  to  a  friend,  "No  more  can  the 
Church  say,  like  Peter,  *  Silver  and  gold  have  I  none.'  '* 
The  reply  came  swift  and  cutting  deep,  "  And  no 
more  can  she  say  to  wearied  and  broken  men,  *  But 
such  as  I  have  I  give  unto  thee.  Rise  up  and  walk.' " 
Christianity  cannot  be  sustained  in  a  world  like  this 
upon  the  fickle  fountains  of  popularity  or  social 
prestige.  We  cannot  keep  the  inner  life  alive  with 
the  power  which  shall  save  ourselves  and  redeem 
the  world,  but  by  striking  our  roots  deep  into  the 
inexhaustible  fountain  of  Christ's  own  passion 
for  men.  Our  deepest  life  is  in  our  union  with  Him 
who  won  a  constant  victory  over  the  world,  defy- 
ing its  winds  to  blight  His  Spirit,  or  its  cruelty  to 
slay  His  love,  and  rising  from  a  grave  into  newness 

of  life. 

Perhaps  the  truth  which  flashes  from  this  incident 
is  one  we  have  never  grasped  —  our  real  life  is 
spiritual,  not  material.  Christ  put  it  in  a  word  for 
Himself  when  hunger  faced  Him  in  the  desert  and 
tempted  Him  with  the  desperate  need  of  bread. 
"  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word 
that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God."  We 
learn  that  lesson  in  various  ways.  Sometimes  we 
grow  up  into  the  knowledge  of  Jesus  as  the  flowers 
rise  up  from  the  cold  enveloping  soil  to  find  the 
sunlight.  Our  very  instinct  would  teach  men  their 
need  of  God  if  only  they  would  heed  the  voice  of 


WHEN  THE  BROOK  DRIES  UP        245 

their  own  deep  nature.  A  modern  scientist,  dis- 
cussing the  evolutionary  process  by  which  the  fish 
developed  the  power  to  live  on  the  land  and  the 
reptile  found  the  power  to  fly,  suggests  the  secret  of  the 
great  adventure.  "  We  are  forced  to  recognize  a  kind 
of  unscientific  trustfulness  which  seems  to  be  engrained 
in  all  living  things."  By  faith  they  launched  out 
from  what  seemed  their  only  possible  environment, 
and  in  launching  out  into  the  larger  world  found  the 
power  to  live  in  it.  Faith  is  not  unreasonable.  It 
is  the  most  common  of  all  the  instincts.  What  is 
repressing  and  overlaying  this  instinct  for  God  ?  Is 
it  our  pride  of  knowledge,  or  the  cares  and  riches 
of  life  which  are  checking  the  finer  shoots  of  the 
soul,  or  choking  our  roots  like  a  pot-bound  plant?  If 
only  we  would  let  the  soul  speak  ! 

There  is  another  way  by  which  men  learn  to  seek 
for  God.  Life  teaches  them.  Something  happens 
sooner  or  later  to  break  this  slumberous  content.  It 
comes  to  pass  that  the  brook  dries  up.  Money 
takes  wings  and  flies  away.  Business  grows  diflicult. 
Those  we  love  are  taken  from  us  one  by  one.  Cold 
famine  meets  the  heart  where  once  there  were  streams 
of  friendship.  Health  passes  and  nature  withers  in 
the  once  strong  frame.  Or  what  is  just  as  bad,  the 
blight  of  disillusionment  falls  on  our  once  pleasant 
world,  and  old  joys  lose  their  power  to  charm.  And 
at  last  death  threatens  us  ;  life  passes  like  the  shadow 
of  a  dream,  forcing  us  into  a  strange  universe, 
alone.  The  brook  dries  up.  What  then  ?  Can 
we  not  see  in  all  this  process  something  so  in- 
evitable that  it  must  be  the  very  pressure  of  God 
forcing  us,  for  very  life,  to  strike  our  roots  deep 
into  the  soil   of  some  abiding  reality?      It  is  His 


246  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

ministry  of  detachment  breaking  ties,  that  we  may 
stretch  forth  the  tendrils  of  faith  and  find  links  with 
the  eternal. 

All  which  I  took  from  thee  I  did  but  take, 

Not  for  thy  harms, 
But  just  that  thou  might'st  seek  it  in  My  arms. 

At  a  recent  meeting  of  the  British  Association  a 
speaker  pointed  out  that  there  was  "  not  much  hope 
for  civilization,  so  long  as  men  were  obsessed  with 
the   idea  that   progress   came    only   through    fuller 
stomachs."     It  is  a  crude  way  to  put  a  great  truth. 
The  way  of  selfishness  is  a  side  track,  and  nature  ever 
and  again  along  the  road  puts  up  the  barrier  whose 
name  we  call  disaster,  saying,  "  No  road  this  way. 
Is  life  growing  greyer  for  any  of  us  ?     Do  the  brooks 
drv  up?     Have  we  come  to  some  valley  where  life 
is  parched  and  bare?     Listen!      There  are  springs 
running  underground,  and  God  is  striking  a  si  ence 
through  your  life  that  you  may  hear  the  trickling 
music  of  the  stream.     "  There  is  a  river,  the  streams 
whereof  make  glad  the  city  of  God."     Be  still,  amid 
His  desolations.    Be  still,  and  know  that  He  is  God. 


PEACE  THROUGH  SINCERITY 

**  Blessed  is  the  man  unto  whom  the  Lord  imputeth  not  iniquity,  and 
in  whose  spirit  there  is  no  guile."— Ps.  xxxii.  2. 

Though  we  find  these  words  in  the  Old  Testament 
there  is  no  better  definition  of  the  peace  of  a 
Christian  man.  We  might  take  them  out  of  their 
setting  and  transplant  them  into  the  middle  of  the 
New  Testament  and  no  one  would  know  they  had 
not  been  uttered  by  some  Christian  saint  out  of  his 
experience  of  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  the 
genuine  doxology  of  redeemed  souls  everywhere, 
telling  the  world  what  God  has  done  for  them. 

Lifted  from  its  context  it  looks  like  a  picture  of 
what  we  call  the  upright  man  whose  conscience  holds 
no  reproach.  "  The  man  to  whom  the  Lord  imputeth 
not  iniquity"  would  seem  to  suggest  one  at  whose 
life  even  God  cannot  point  an  accusing  finger.  But 
the  context  forbids  a  picture  like  that.  The  whole 
tenor  of  the  Psalm  is  against  it.  It  is  written 
evidently  by  a  man  who  has  had  much  to  hide  and 
has  indeed  been  hiding  much,  both  from  himself  and 
from  God.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  written  by 
David  after  the  great  fall  which  flung  a  shadow  over 
his  life  and  brought  him  into  a  moral  tumult.  His 
sin  shattered  his  self-complacency,  flung  down  the 
barriers  of  pride  and  self-respect  which  had  been 
sheltering  him  from  reality  ;  there  is  nothing  which 


247 


248  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

can   "  stab  the   spirit   broad-awake,"  in    Stevenson's 
words,  like  what  he  calls  a  "  killing  sin."     His  soul 
was  exposed,  shuddering  and  naked,  to  the  piercing 
rays  of  God's  purity.     When  a  stone  is  lifted,  letting 
in  the  light,  the  creatures  which  live  under  it  begin 
to   wriggle    and  twist,   making   the   most   desperate 
efforts  to  escape  from  the  blinding  rays  which  strike 
upon  every  sensitive  nerve.     That  was  David's  con- 
dition at  first.     It  was  a  state  of  hell,  the  hell  of  the 
raw   conscience   which   can    find    no   peace   and    no 
protection.      He    describes    the    experience.     "  Day 
and   night    Thy   hand    was   heavy   upon    me.     My 
moisture   is   turned   into   the  drought   of  summer." 
Pitilessly  fell   the  rays,  like   a   sun    upon  a  treeless 
landscape,  till  they  were  like  to  shrivel  his  very  soul. 
Then  he  took  another  line.     He  faced  the  light  which 
was  beating  down  upon  his  conscience.     He  opened 
his    life   to    God,   seeking    no    shelters    of  his    own, 
making  no  excuses,  offering  no  satisfaction,  looking 
his  sin  straight  in  the  face  with  all  God's  light  upon 
it.     "  I  acknowledged  my  sin  unto  Thee,  and  mine 
iniquity  have  I  not  hid."     Then  came  peace.     The 
very  love  from  which  he  had  tried  to  hide  became  his 
shelter.     The  very  light  which   hurt  his  wound  had 
healing   in    it.     The    reproach    that  stung   him    was 
really  burning  with  the  fire  of  love.     "  Thou  art  my 
hiding-place,  O  Lord.     Thou  wilt  compass  me  about 
with  songs  of  deliverance." 

Ah,  faintest,  blindest,  weakest, 
I  am  He  whom  thou  seekest, 
Thou  dravest  love  from  thee 
Who  dravest  Me. 

And  he  took  up  the  song  and  sang  it — the  song  of 
the   redeemed,  "  Blessed    is   he    whose  transgression 


PEACE  THROUGH  SINCERITY         249 

is  hidden,  whose  sin  is  covered.  Blessed  is  the  man 
to  whom  the  Lord  imputeth  not  iniquity,  and  in 
whose  spirit  there  is  no  guile." 

The  Christian  experience  has  many  roads  into  it. 
The   city  of  God  has    many  gates.     Bunyan  in  his 
great  allegory  describes  only  one.     He  tells  how  a 
man  living  in  the  city  of  Destruction  suddenly  awoke 
to  his  sin.     There  was  nothing  remarkable  about  him 
as  a  sinner.     He  was  just  an  ordinary  man  whose 
soul  had  given  him  no  trouble.     He  had  committed 
no  dreadful  crime.     But  one  day  reading  in  the  Bible, 
which  is  God's  mirror,  he  had  seen  himself  and  his 
surroundings  set  in  the  eye  of   God,  and  a  strange 
weight  fell  upon  his  spirit  as  real  as  a  load  upon  the 
back.     He    fled   from   the   city,   leaving   everything 
behind   him,  to  find   deliverance   from    his   burden. 
Bunyan  describes   the  experience  as  if  it   were   the 
only  path  into  the  Christian  way.     There  are  other 
ways,   of  course.     We   may   come   to   know   Christ 
through  our  need  of  a  friend,  or  the  need  of  some  one 
to  captain  our  soul  in  a  great  fight  with  the  long  odds 
of  circumstance.     Some    men    come    to    Christ   as 
masterless    men    of  the   olden    time  used  to  gather 
round  a  leader,  seeking  some  splendid    and   heroic 
quest.     God  forbid  that  we  should  rule  any  one  out 
of  His  Kingdom  because  he  has  not  come  in  by  our 
door !     But  whether  it  be  soon  or  late,  the  hour  will 
come  when  the  mysterious  burden  will  appear.     The 
glory  of  that  city,  which  is  the  light  of  Christ's  own 
face,  will  reveal  the  stains  upon  our  garments.     Peter 
did  not  realize  his  sin  till  he  had  been  a  disciple  for 
some  time.     As  he  saw  deeper  and  deeper  into  the 
nature  of  Jesus,  he  saw  deeper  and  deeper  into  his 
own,  till  one  day  he  came  to  cry,  "  Depart  from  me, 


2  50  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord."  The  farther  on 
Christ  led  him,  the  more  life  taught  him  his  own 
weakness,  till  the  very  crisis  in  which  his  loyalty  was 
most  needed  revealed  a  streak  of  baseness  in  his 
blood,  suddenly  cropping  up  like  a  fault  in  a  mine 
and  bringing  to  ruin  the  golden  promise  of  his  new- 
found friendship.  One  of  the  perplexing  things 
about  Christianity  is  that  Christ's  demands  are 
pitched  so  high,  they  seem  to  invite  our  failure. 
The  call  of  His  discipleship  draws  us  into  an 
intimacy  in  which  His  love  humiliates  as  well  as 
comforts.  The  heights  are  bracing;  the  sunlight  is 
stimulating;  but  it  is  difficult  to  keep  our  footing 
there.  How  shall  we  bear  the  searching  and  the 
challenge  of  that  love  whose  very  splendour  seems 
to  condemn  us  in  the  moment  of  its  attraction  ?  It 
is  almost  like  the  moth  with  the  candle ;  there  is  a 
brightness  which  fascinates  the  creature,  but  in  the 
centre  of  that  blazing  glory  there  is  a  flame  whose 
touch  is  the  crippling  of  its  wings.  Here  is  the 
problem  of  redemption — how  a  sinful  man  can  be 
without  guile,  exposing  his  soul  with  utter  sincerity 
to  the  light  of  God,  and  yet  be  conscious  of  a 
peace  which  is  blessed,  a  heart  of  joy  that  over- 
flows with  music — "  a  man  to  whom  the  Lord 
imputeth  not  iniquity,  and  in  whose  spirit  there  is 

no  guile." 

This  word  "  guile  "  is  a  very  suggestive  word.     It 
suggests  the  common  way  of  dealing  with  a  reproach- 

o  o 

ful  conscience.  The  common  way  is  to  deal  with  it 
by  guile,  by  some  stratagem  of  the  mind.  It  is  an 
almost  irresistible  temptation  to  the  best  of  us  to 
put  up  shelters  for  ourselves  against  the  blinding 
judgment.     And  there   are    many  kinds  of  shelters 


PEACE  THROUGH  SINCERITY 


"  :> 


into  which  we  creep  for  the  security  of  our  souls  and 
try  to  find  a  kind  of  unsettled  peace. 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  way  of  self-excusing. 
We  say  to  ourselves  that  we  are  not  so  bad  as  our 
own  conscience  would  have  us  think.  We  take 
refuge  in  phrases  about  the  frailty  of  poor  human 
nature.  We  are  erring  creatures  at  the  best,  and 
God  who  knows  us  through  and  through  will  not 
demand  more  of  us  than  we  are  capable  of  being, 
and  will  not  judge  us  harshly.  After  all,  we  are  all 
in  the  same  boat.  And  on  the  whole  perhaps  we 
convince  ourselves  that  in  our  gloomy  self-reproach 
we  are  taking  our  sin  too  seriously. 

Or  we  build  the  shelter  of  good  works.  We  scan 
the  other  side  of  the  ledger  where  memory  has 
recorded  this  good  deed  or  that  in  our  favour.  Or 
we  give  ourselves  to  good  works,  determined  to  make 
up  for  the  past  by  doing  all  the  good  we  can.  This 
kind  of  strategy  is  at  the  root  of  the  whole  system 
of  penance  wherewith  men  and  women  have  tortured 
their  lives,  seeking  by  the  pain  of  the  body  to  cleanse 
the  stain  of  the  soul.  "  In  Mr.  Dimmesdale's  secret 
closet,  kept  under  lock  and  key,  there  was  a  bloody 
scourge.  Oftentimes  this  protestant  and  puritan 
divine  had  plied  it  on  his  own  shoulders,  laughing 
bitterly  at  himself  the  while,  and  smiting  so  much 
the  more  pitilessly  because  of  the  bitter  laugh.  It 
was  his  custom,  too,  to  fast,  not  as  a  means  of  purifying 
his  body  and  rendering  it  more  fit  for  heavenly 
illumination,  but  rigorously  as  an  act  of  penance." 
So  Hawthorne  describes  his  penitent  putting  up  his 
shelter  of  self-inflicted  pain  against  reality.  But  it 
was  all  the  strategy  of  guiljC,  seeking  a  peace  through 
evasion  of  the  light. 


252  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

There  is  another  kind  of  shelter  too,  in  which  we 
take  refuge.  It  is  the  thought  of  what  some  other 
has  done  for  us,  even  God  Himself  The  most 
blessed  truth  of  all  knowledge  is  the  truth  that 
Christ  died  for  us.  Toplady's  old  hymn  has  that 
truth  in  it  which  is  the  one  anchor  of  our  hope: 

Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me, 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  Thee. 

But  there  is  a  way  of  stating  that  truth  and  resting 
in  it,  which  may  be  a  mere  evasion,  a  mere  shelter 
from  a  sin  we  refuse  to  face.  We  may  lift  up  the 
Cross  of  Christ  between  us  and  the  thought  of  sin 
so  as  to  hide  us  from  the  sting  of  sin's  reality.  One 
man  may  die  for  another,  taking  on  himself  some  of 
the  consequences  of  the  other's  sin — for  the  deepest 
consequences  are  within  the  soul  of  the  sinner  himself; 
but  can  any  one  carry  our  responsibility  for  our  own 
deeds  and  leave  us  in  a  moral  world  ?  The  innocent 
may  suffer  for  the  guilty,  and  continually  do,  but  are  the 
guilty  any  less  guilty?  Can  any  one  who  has  faced 
his  sin  accept  a  peace  of  conscience  in  the  thought 
that  another  has  died  for  him,  without  so  lowering 
moral  value  as  to  work  havoc  in  his  own  soul? 
There  is  a  way  of  looking  at  the  sacrjfice  of  Christ, 
and  accepting  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  which  may 
lessen  the  sense  of  sin  and  make  us  take  a  lighter 
view  of  its  horror  and  shame;  so  opening  the  path 
for  future  sinning.  Such  a  view  may  break  down 
barriers  which  conscience  sets  up  between  us  and 
the  evil  thing.  It  may  close  the  wound  without 
purging  the  poison.  In  Paul's  words,  it  makes  the 
Cross  of  Christ  of  none  effect,  and  puts  Him  to  an 
open  shame. 


PEACE  THROUGH  SINCERITY         253 

Whatever  happens,  we  must  face  the  truth  of  sin, 
without  shelter  and  evasion.  We  must  look  into  the 
face  of  accusing  purity  without  guile.  There  is  an 
honourable  and  a  dishonourable  peace,  and  there  is  no 
peace  with  honour  in  the  face  of  God  which  comes 
through  evasion  or  self-excusing. 

How,  then,  are  we  to  find  this  peace  which  comes 
with  utter  sincerity?  All  our  evasions  are  rooted  in 
a  wrong  view  of  God  and  His  relation  to  us  and  to 
our  sin.  If  we  track  them  down,  we  will  find  they 
come  from  the  thought  of  God  as  a  stern  judge  or 
a  ruthless  creditor  who  demands  the  uttermost 
farthing.  So  long  as  our  relations  with  God  are 
seen  in  the  terms  of  the  law-courts  and  the  counting- 
house,  so  long  will  this  demand  for  some  kind  of 
shelter  remain,  and  so  long  will  we  continue  to  find 
no  peace  there.  But  that  view  of  God  is  the  very 
view  from  which  Jesus  came  to  deliver  us.  He  came 
revealing  the  unseen  order  in  which  God  stands  to 
us.  It  is  not  that  of  a  judge  in  the  courts,  or  a 
merchant  with  his  account  books;  it  is  that  of  a 
father  in  the  home — a  relationship  of  love.  Turn 
to  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  you  find  there 
the  very  heart  of  God's  attitude  towards  us.  When 
the  prodigal  comes  back,  he  expects  to  find  a  judge 
or  an  angry  man  he  has  defrauded,  who  will  only  let 
him  return  on  certain  strict  conditions — which,  how- 
ever, he  is  willing  to  fulfil.  "  I  will  say  unto  him, 
'  Make  me  a  hired  servant.' "  Let  me  work  off  my 
indebtedness  by  the  sweat  of  my  brow.  But  to  his 
surprise,  he  finds  a  father  waiting  to  receive  him  in  a 
welcome  of  love,  which  will  let  no  shadows  from  the 
past  cloud   the  "glad   confident  morning"  of  hope. 


2  54  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

This  is  the  essence  of  forgiveness.  It  is  not  the  can- 
celling of  the  past;  for  the  past  can  never  be  can- 
celled. The  consequences  of  sin  will  remain.  The 
money  is  spent,  for  one  thing.  Nothing  can  ever 
bring  it  back.  And  the  disgrace  of  sin  remains ; 
there  will  be  the  whispering  tongues  of  the  scandal- 
mongers who  will  find  the  story  of  his  sin  a  spicy 
morsel  of  gossip,  and  will  take  many  a  chance  to  cast 
up  to  him  his  own  misdeeds.  And  there  will  be 
habits  to  overcome  and  lurid  pictures  from  the  past 
rising  to  fill  his  mind  with  tempting  suggestions  in 
days  of  dreary  drudgery.  We  cannot  get  rid  of  the 
past  by  any  jugglery  of  the  mind.  "  The  scars 
remain,"  Gough  used  to  tell  his  audiences,  warning 
the  unwary.  The  scars  remain ;  forgiveness  is  no 
magic  means  of  erasing  them.  Forgiveness  means 
restoration  to  the  fellowship  of  the  Father,  who 
takes  us  back  to  our  own  place  in  His  love.  His 
welcome  is  the  call  to  step  back,  "just  as  we  are," 
into  full  and  unclouded  sonship.  He  does  not  demand 
the  repayment  of  any  debt,  before  He  takes  us  back. 
If  there  are  debts  to  be  paid  as  part  of  the  con- 
sequences of  sin,  they  will  be  paid  out  of  the  blessed 
peace  and  power  of  that  forgiveness. 

For  this  fellowship  is  the  only  power  which  can 
enable  us  to  stand  up  to  the  consequences  of  sin.  It 
gives  us  power  to  face  them,  by  giving  us  the  right 
attitude  to  them.  It  enables  us  to  accept  them  as 
God's  appointment,  turning  the  very  scars  of  sin  into 
a  means  of  humbling  and  tenderness  of  spirit,  and 
making  of  our  bitter  memories  an  angel  with  a  flaming 
sword,  to  keep  us  from  going  back.  So  the  very 
consequences  of  sin,  faced  and  borne  in  loving 
obedience,  become  built  into  the  structure  of  a  new 


PEACE  THROUGH  SINCERITY         255 

character,  like  a  house  built  out  of  ruins.  As 
Phillips  Brooks  says:  "The  only  way  to  get  rid  of 
:he  past,  is  to  make  a  future  out  of  it." 

In  this  task  God  stands  in  with  us.  To  face  the 
situation  into  which  sin  has  brought  us,  is  as  much 
a  divine  task  as  any  great  service  which  meets  us ; 
and  God  comes  into  it  to  help  us  through,  with  all 
the  resources  of  His  grace.  Amid  the  shadows  of 
moral  failure  we  may  be  as  conscious  as  anywhere 
else  of  "the  Hands  which  reach  through  darkness, 
moulding  men."  No  doubt  the  son  would  insist  on 
telling  the  whole  story  to  his  father,  hiding  nothing, 
screening  nothing,  while  the  father  listened  with  a 
breaking  heart  which  filled  his  eyes  with  tears.  But 
here  is  the  point.  Nothing  in  all  that  sad  story 
was  suffered  for  a  moment  to  bring  a  shadow  between 
them.  It  was  full  and  free  forgiveness,  pardon  to 
the  uttermost.  There  was  no  imputing  of  iniquity. 
Nothing  in  the  past  was  allowed  to  stand  for  one 
moment  between  the  son  and  the  completeness  of 
the  father's  fellowship,  which  is  salvation.  O  the 
measurelessness  of  the  Divine  forgiveness  !  "  As  far  as 
the  east  is  from  the  west,  so  far  hath  He  removed 
our  transgression  from  us."  This  is  the  peace  of  the 
unsheltered  soul.  It  is  the  peace  of  the  man  who, 
facing  his  sin  and  all  its  consequences  with  utter 
sincerity,  finds  God  utterly  and  only  love. 

Some  people  feel  that  the  story  of  the  Prodigal 
lacks  something  of  a  full  gospel,  because  there  is  no 
"  cross "  in  it.  But  is  there  no  cross  in  it  ?  Can 
we  read  it  with  any  imagination  without  seeing  the 
Cross  printed  on  the  father's  heart,  as  he  lingers  on 
the  brow  of  the  hill  morning  after  morning,  hunger- 
ing for  the  boy's  return.     For  what  is  the  Cross,  so 


2S6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

far  as  we  can  see  into  its  depths  with  our  purblind 
eyes,  but  the  mighty  assurance  through  all  our  wan- 
dering, that  God  loves  us  still.     Calvary  was  the  great 
moment  in  human   life,  when   through  the  heaving 
tides   of  passion   the   waters  swept  back  and   there 
stood  out  uncovered  and  indestructible  the  rock  of 
God's  eternal  love.    This  love,  indeed,  cannot  be  true  to 
itself,  in  the  face  of  our  sin,  save  at  the  cost  of  agony ; 
but  it  is  this  love,  seeing  our  sin  with  the  piercing 
insight  of  love,  which  is  the  secret  of  our  forgiveness ; 
and  not  any  stratagem  of  our  reproachful  conscience. 
What   does   this   peace   demand   of    us.     It   only 
demands   that  we   step  into   the  order  of  love.     It 
asks  only  that  we  should  accept  the  place  of  a  son, 
taking   our   new    life   as    the   gift   of    God's    mercy. 
This  is  the  great  message  of  the  gospel  which  broke 
into  music  in   the  soul  of  Luther,  and  set  the  half 
of  Europe   singing,   "The -just  shall  live   by  faith." 
Salvation  is  there,  for  us,  in  that  restored  fellowship 
with   God.     We   have    nothing   to   do   but   take   it. 
And   out  of  that  fellowship    springs    the   power   to 
change  life  to  the  roots,  and  make  the  whole  world 
new.     Only  we  must  be  utterly  sincere,  not  seeking 
in  this  fellowship  any  escape  from  sin's  reproach  or 
consequences,  save   by  God's   victory  over   them  in 
enabling  us  to  meet  them  victoriously.     It  is  God's 
love   we   need.     To    know   that    is    salvation.     His 
fellowship    is   the    heart   of    everything.     And    the 
self-excusing   which  hides   from  the   pain   of  God's 
light,  hides  from  the  healing   of  God's    love.     The 
shelters  we  put  up  against  the  truth  are  the  barriers 
we  set  up  against  the  Divine  forgiveness,  "  If  ye  walk 
in  the  light  ...  as  He  is  in  the  light,  .  .  .  the  blood 
of  Jesus  Christ  His  son  cleanseth  you  from  all  sin." 


PEACE  THROUGH  SINCERITY         2^7 


D/ 


It  is  not  an  easy  thin^,  this  utter  sincerity. 
Forgiveness  is  free,  but  it  is  not  cheap.  Penitence 
is  no  passing-  moment;  it  is  the  permanent  attitude 
of  the  forgiven  Hfe.  We  dare  never  lose  the  penitent 
spirit,  or  we  risk  losing  that  sensitiveness  by  which 
we  are  aware  of  the  wonder  o{  God's  love,  for  the 
peace  and  power  of  God's  forgiveness  is  like  the  pearl 
in  the  oyster ;  it  grows  only  in  the  heart  which  is  kept 
sensitive  to  its  own  wound. 

The  acceptance  of  forgiveness  means  stepping  into 
the  order  of  love — and  not  only  to  God  ;  for  love  has 
no  limits.  It  means  coming  into  the  order  of  love 
in  all  life's  relationships.  It  means  the  attitude  and 
way  of  love  all  round.  That  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Parable  of  the  Unforgiving  Debtor.  His  own  debt 
was  cancelled,  but  he  went  out  refusing  to  do  the 
same  for  his  creditors,  and  found  to  his  dismay  that 
forgiveness  was  therefore  denied  to  himself.  Surely 
the  deep  meaning  of  this  is  plain.  God  forgives  us 
by  lifting  us  and  calling  us  into  an  order  of  love, 
in  which  we  have  to  live  our  lives  all  round.  It 
means  opening  our  hearts  from  day  to  day  to  all  the 
demands  of  love  in  daily  contact  with  our  fellows, 
in  all  our  outlook  on  the  world's  need.  The  Christian 
world  is  ansemic  to-day,  because  we  will  not  face  the 
logic  of  God's  love  and  open  our  eyes  to  the  reality 
of  its  dem.ands.  What  will  this  love  demand  of  us 
in  relation  to  the  sinful,  the  sick,  the  heathen,  the 
people  who  hate  us  and  have  done  us  ill,  those  whose 
lives  are  in  our  power?  It  is  not  an  easy  thino-  to 
be  forgiven,  to  be  lifted  into  this  order  of  love  which 
is  our  peace.  There  is  nothing  in  it  of  what  Myers 
calls  "the  torpor  of  a  foul  tranquillity."  It  is  the 
kind  of  peace  which  Christ  found  on  His  Cross,  in  a 

T7 


258  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

heart  made  sensitive  by  fellowship  with  God  to  the 
sin  and  suffering  of  the  world. 

Heart,  are  you  great  enough  for  love, 

For  a  love  that  never  tires? 
O  heart,  are  you  great  enough  for  love? 

I  have  heard  of  thorns  and  briers. 

These  high  levels  were  beyond  us,  were  it  not  for  the 
assurance  of  a  love  which  only  awakens  need  to 
satisfy  it,  and  only  sets  a  task  to  give  us  power  to  do 
it.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  rise  into  the  grasp  of  this 
"  tremendous  Lover " ;  but  the  peace  He  gives  is  the 
only  peace  in  which  a  son  of  God  can  rest.  It  is  the 
only  peace  the  world  cannot  break,  for  it  is  founded 
on  the  indestructible  reality  of  the  love  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ 


THE  REMAKING  OF  MANHOOD 

**  Then  Peter  said,  Silver  and  gold  have  I  none  ;  but  such  as  I  have 
give  I  thee.  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth  rise  up  and 
walk." — Acts  iii.  6. 

We  can  hardly  read  these  chapters  of  the  Book  of 
Acts  without  a  certain  sense  of  wistful  regret.  It 
was  a  time  of  miraculous  things.  Thousands  of 
men  and  women  were  literally  made  anew.  Long 
crusted  habits  of  sin  were  broken,  and  a  new  fresh 
life  begun  which  filled  the  soul  with  happiness  and 
power.  It  seems  to  us  as  we  read  these  chapters, 
that  there  has  passed  away  a  glory  from  the  earth. 
Inevitably  the  question  arises  in  our  minds — Has 
the  touch  of  Christ  still  its  ancient  power  ?  May  we 
expect  such  marvellous  changes  to-day?  People 
have  talked  much  of  the  failure  of  Christianity.  Is 
it  true  that  it  is  a  failure  to-day?  Is  it  true  that  we 
cannot  recapture,  in  these  days  of  knowledge  and 
wisdom,  the  early  glory?  Is  its  power  gone,  so  that 
we  must  look  for  a  different  gospel?  And  indeed 
there  are  many  new  gospels  which  are  springing  up 
everywhere,  some  of  them  fungus  growths  arising 
out  of  the  despair  and  darkness  of  men's  hearts. 

The  story  raises  the  whole  question  of  how  we 
may  expect  Christianity  to  get  to  work  upon  our 
lives.  It  is  all  very  well  to  use  great  swelling  words 
about   the  power   of  Christianity.     No   one  disputes 


2  6o  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

the  fact  that  a  vital  faith  in  Christ,  widespread  in  the 
community,  would  penetrate  our  life  in  every  direc- 
tion, and  bring  a  wonderful  transformation.     But  the 
practical  question    is,  where  the  power   of  Christ  is 
applied  and  how  it  gets  to  work  ?     A  great  deal  of 
the  disappointment  that  some  people  feel  with  regard 
to  Christianity  arises  because  they  are  expecting,  in 
a  way,  too  much  from  it;   or   rather  that  they  are 
looking  for   its    results    in    the  wrong   quarter.     We 
jare  expecting   the   fruit  without   the   root.     We  are 
looking   for  external  results  instead  of  making  sure 
of  that  inward  contact  with  Christ  in  the  remaking 
of  the  soul  which  is  the  secret  of  all  other  transforma- 
tions.    There  are  people,  for  instance,  who  tell  us  that 
the  Christian  faith  ought  to  be  the  healing  power  for 
our  bodily  sickness.     For  them  the  test  of  faith  is, 
whether  it  can  take  a  man  who  is  lamed   by  some 
(disease  and  set  him  on  his  feet  again  without  the  aid 
of  doctors.     The  prosperity  of  the  medical  profession 
for  them  has  grown  up  around  the  failure  of  Christi- 
anity ;  the  doctors  are  able  to  live  because  Christianity 
is  dead.     They  take  the  Apostle  Paul  to  task  with 
his   thorn  in    the   flesh,  and   tell  us  that  he  had  no 
business  to  endure  a  bodily  weakness,  that  if  only  he 
had  had  enough  faith  he  might  have  been  rid  of  it ! 
It  is  true,  one  of  the  effects  of  the  Christian  challenge 
to  this  man  at  the  Gate  was  the  healing  of  his  body. 
He  was  lame ;  he  had  to  be  carried  by  other  people, 
and  the  first  thing  the  grace  of  God  did  for  him  was 
to  make  it  possible  for  him  to  walk  on  his  own  feet. 
That  kind  of  miracle  happens;   it  has  happened  to 
other  people  besides  this  man.     But  it  was  not  the 
essence  of  his  cure ;  it  was  only  one  effect  of  it.     His  | 
weakness,  so  long  continued,  was  not  a  weakness  in 


THE  REMAKING  OF  MANHOOD       261 

his  muscles  only ;  it  was  due  to  some  failure  deep 
down  in  the  roots  of  his  life.  The  man  was  im- 
potent within.  And  when  Peter  touched  that  weak- 
ness within  the  will,  the  man  got  strength  which 
overflowed  his  weakness  and  carried  it  away,  and 
he  went  out  walking  and  leaping  and  praising  God. 

There  are  people,  again,  who  are  looking  for  the 
effects  of  Christianity  in  an  addition  to  their  comfort 
— in  new  conditions  of  physical  life.  If  we  had  more  * 
Christianity,  they  tell  us,  we  should  not  have  the 
slums  of  East  London,  or  any  other  slums ;  we 
should  not  have  people  working  for  a  starvation 
wage;  every  one  would  have  enough  to  eat  and 
enough  to  wear.  They  would  turn  Christ  into  a 
great  philanthropist  and  Christianity  into  a  propa- 
ganda for  social  reform.  There  are  men  and  women 
who  are  crying  out  for  better  conditions  for  whom 
practical  Christianity  is  summed  up  in  the  gift 
of  a  living  wage  and  a  decent  house  to  live  in. 
And  these  things  will  be  part  of  the  fruit  of  vital 
Christianity.  There  is  no  other  way  of  bringing 
them  in.  The  new  world  of  which  we  dream  will 
come  in  when  Christ  comes  in,  and  not  till  then. 
The  better  world  of  our  dreams  is  the  creation  of 
the  Christian  mind  and  imagination.  The  New 
Jerusalem  vision  was  born  in  heaven,  and  from 
heaven  it  must  come  or  it  will  not  come  at  all. 
"  Direct  Action  "  will  never  bring  it ;  the  devices  and 
schemes  of  men,  however  beautiful,  will  never  bring 
it ;  class  interest  will  never  bring  it ;  self-interest  will 
never  bring  it.  As  a  writer  says:  "You  cannot 
make  a  permanent  society  by  tying  a  bundle  of 
selfish  folk  together  with  some  rotten  string  of  class 
or   self-interest."     Christianity  alone   has  the   power 


2  62  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

of   social   betterment.     But   the   truth   is,   it   is   not 
comfort  Christ  offers  us  in  the  first  place ;  it  is  the 
mind  to  work  for  some  other  body's  comfort.     It  is 
not  higher  wages  He  comes   to   give   us;  it   is   the 
spirit  which  works  for  something  higher  than  wages. 
It  is  not  security  He  offers  us,  not  relief  from  hard- 
ship; it  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  courage  and  faith 
which   conquer   hardship  and    rise  above  it,  to  win 
over  it  a  victory  of  the  spirit.     Turn  to  this  story. 
The   man  was   lame.     He   was   a   beggar.     He  had 
been  a  stretcher  case  all  his  life.     He  had  been  living 
amid  ill  conditions.     His  case  touched  Peter  to  the 
quick,  as   he   looked   up   with   hunger   in   his   eyes. 
But   Peter   saw  beneath   the   surface   need   and   the 
pitiful  weakness  of  the  man  begging   for  a  dole  to 
keep   body  and  soul  alive — right   down  to   the  real 
trouble,  which  was  a  trouble  of  the  soul.     His  first 
act  was  to  refuse  material   help.     **  Silver  and  gold 
have  I  none,"  he  said.     "  Do  not  expect  these  things 
from  me.     But  I  have  a  gift  for  you.     In  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ   of  Nazareth   rise   up   and  walk  on 
your  own  feet.     Bring  your  will  into  action.     Over- 
come your  weakness  by  putting   forth   the  strength 
you  have.     Become  a  new  man,  renewed  in  the  secret 
fountains  of  your  being.     That  is  what  I  can  do  for 
you.     "  Such  as  I  have  I  give  unto  you.     In  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth  rise  up  and  walk." 

Now  what  did  the  apostle  do  for  that  man  ?  The 
solution  of  all  our  troubles  lies  in  getting  a  real 
grasp  of  what  it  is  that  Christianity  can  do  for  us, 
and  setting  its  power  to  work  in  our  lives  to-day. 
In  this  incident  we  get  an  illustration  of  how  Christ 
works,  and  what  His  power  is  able  to  achieve. 

In  the  first  place,  He  works  within  the  man  himself, 


THE  REMAKLNG  OF  MANHOOD       263 

the  individual  man.  That  is  His  first  point  of  attack 
upon  the  evil  of  life  everywhere — through  the  heart 
of  man.  And  He  works  by  renewing  man's  nature, 
thereby  transforming  the  character  from  within. 
This  is  not  to  say  that  better  external  conditions 
will  not  help.  There  are  people  who  can  never  be 
reached  till  they  are  attacked  through  some  change 
in  the  conditions  of  their  life.  They  are  so  sunk 
and  embittered  that  their  mind  and  soul  are  almost 
incapable  of  listening  to  any  Christian  appeal,  much 
less  of  responding  to  it.  When  Moses  came  to  the 
children  of  Israel  with  his  great  emancipating 
message  of  God,  "  they  hearkened  not  unto  him  for 
anguish  of  spirit,  and  cruel  bondage."  If  it  were 
for  nothing  else  but  to  get  home  with  a  message  for 
God,  it  is  the  task  of  a  Christian  society  to  attack 
the  evils  which  desolate  the  human  spirit  and  keep 
it  in  bondage.  But  better  conditions  will  not  work 
the  real  miracle  of  a  remade  manhood.  They  will 
not  change  the  man,  nor  brace  the  impotent  will. 
They  will  not  alter  the  wrong  desire,  nor  renew  the 
fountains  of  vitality.  We  speak  of  giving  man  a 
richer  life,  a  larger  life,  and  that  is  right.  But  what 
if  there  be  no  life  at  all  ?  What  if  the  will  be  weak 
and  the  soul  sodden  under  evil  habit,  and  the  whole 
nature  set  upon  things  that  are  unworthy?  What 
if  the  man's  soul  be  poisoned  with  selfishness  so  that 
his  homelife  is  a  wreck — and  that  happens  when 
there  is  plenty  of  comfort,  in  a  mansion  as  well  as 
in  a  slum.  What  if  there  be  no  life?  You  can 
change  a  common  bee  into  a  queen  bee  by  feeding 
it  upon  a  certain  kind  of  diet,  but  it  takes  more  than 
diet  to  change  a  man's  moral  nature;  it  takes  the 
grace  of  God  in  the  heart.     How  many  people  are 


2  64  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

there  about  us  to-day,  whose  first  need  is  not  more 
comfort,  but  more  character ;  not  more  pleasure,  but 
more  heart  for  Hfe's  battle ;  not  a  larger  house,  but 
a  sense  of  eternity  and  a  new  relationship  with  God. 
The  root  of  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  is  there — 
What  is  our  will  like  ?  Do  we  will  the  things  that 
are  highest?  Do  we  will  the  things  which  make  a 
man  happy  and  strong,  and  brave  and  true,  the  things 
that  make  life  "  life  indeed  "  and  not  merely  existence. 
And  are  we  able  to  carry  out  what  we  will  ?  Are 
we  master  of  our  own  house  ?  Are  we  able  to  direct 
our  life  to  the  things  which  God  gives  us  all  to  see 
as  the  best  ?  Do  we  will,  day  by  day,  the  things  for 
which  Christ  lived  and  died,  and  can  we  carry  them 
out?  It  is  this  will  of  ours  which  is  the  secret  of  all 
effective  manhood  and  womanhood.  And  it  is  in 
this  secret  place  of  being  that  Christ  works  to 
change  us  and  renew  us  within.  "What  was  it  that 
happened  to  this  man,  when  that  spring  was  touched  ? 
He  became  a  man  and  not  a  helpless  thing.  He 
was  able  to  direct  his  life,  able  to  enter  into  happy 
relations  with  others,  able  to  make  his  own  con- 
tribution to  life,  able  to  use  his  life  in  the  interests 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  for  the  purposes  of  His  Kingdom. 
His  whole  personality  was  remade.  And  he  went 
walking  and  leaping  and  praising  God. 

Now  that  is  what  Christ  can  do  for  men  to-day^ 
and  that  is  our  greatest  need.  What  is  more,  He 
can  do  it  now.  That  is  where  all  other  reforms  fail ; 
you  have  to  wait  for  them.  You  will  have  to  wait 
twenty,  thirty  years  till  the  slums  are  effectively 
dealt  with,  and  the  housing  conditions  made  fit  for 
men  and  women  to  live  in.  Social  reform  must  come 
gradually ;  but  Christ  can  take  a  man  living  in  these 


THE  REMAKING  OF  MANHOOD       265 

present  conditions,  at  this  moment,  and  make  him  a 
new  man,  victorious  over  his  surroundings.  It  may 
take  years  to  get  the  public-houses  closed  ;  Christ 
can  take  a  man  sodden  in  drink,  with  a  public-house 
at  his  door,  and  turn  him  into  a  sober  self-respecting 
man,  master  of  himself  It  will  take  years  to  bring 
in  a  new  system  of  things,  to  make  business  life  more 
Christian,  and  social  life  more  brotherly ;  but  Christ 
can  take  a  man  in  any  business,  and  give  him  the 
power  to  live  to  the  full  a  straight,  clean,  brotherly 
life,  saved  and  endowed  by  grace.  There  are  people 
who  often  say  to  us  that  it  is  impossible  to  be  a 
Christian  man,  or  to  live  a  Christian  life  in  present 
conditions.  Here  is  a  man  in  a  slum-dwelling 
with  filth  and  squalor  on  every  hand.  How  can  he 
live  a  Christian  life  in  a  place  like  that  ?  It  is  hard 
— God  knows  how  hard.  It  is  a  miracle,  a  moral 
miracle,  but  it  is  just  the  kind  of  miracle  that  Christ 
can  work  when  He  gets  into  the  heart.  There  were 
saints  in  Caesar's  household,  according  to  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  worst  conditions  of  to-day  can 
hardly  prove  a  bigger  handicap  than  the  environment 
of  Nero's  palace.  Yet  there  were  saints  there,  saints 
by  the  moral  miracle  which  God  works  within  the 
soul,  renewing  a  man  in  the  depths  of  his  being,  to 
goodness  and  purity  and  love. 

To  take  up  the  position  that  a  man  cannot  live 
a  redeemed  life  in  certain  evil  conditions,  is  to  deny 
what  the  New  Testament  stands  for,  which  is 
"Eternal  life  in  the  midst  of  time" — in  the  midst  of 
any  kind  of  circumstance — "  by  the  strength  of  God, 
and  under  the  eyes  of  God."  To  deny  the  redeeming 
power  of  God  in  any  circumstances,  is  to  give  up  that 
faith  which  is  the  only  leverage  by  which  God  can 


266  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

raise  the  world.  Christ  can  do  this  for  a  man — any 
man,  anywhere:  He  can  produce  that  eternal  life, 
that  new  vitality  from  which  everything  springs — the 
desire  to  change  things,  and  the  power  to  change 
things.  "  Silver  and  gold  have  I  none/'  said  Peter, 
"but  such  as  I  have  I  give  unto  thee.  In  the 
name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  rise  up  and  walk." 

Now  how  did  this  miracle  come  about?  Can  we 
trace  the  process  by  which  this  man  was  endowed 
with  spiritual  manhood  and  made  fit  for  life?  It 
was  a  case  of  what  people  call  suggestion — the  means 
by  which  an  idea  is  induced  in  a  man  so  strongly 
and  powerfully,  that  it  takes  hold  of  his  being  and 
awakens  his  will  to  carry  it  out,  or  to  believe  in  it. 
But  what  was  it  that  gave  the  power  to  the  sugges- 
tion. It  was  the  name  of  Jesus.  "  In  the  name  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  I  say  unto  you  rise  up  and 
walk."  It  looks  like  magic,  but  it  was  not  magic. 
Doubtless  the  cripple  knew  something  about  that 
name.  The  whole  district,  the  whole  world  in  which 
he  lived  was  ringing  with  it.  The  very  air  was 
radiant  with  the  afterglow  of  the  resurrection.  The 
name  of  Jesus  was  not  a  mere  name.  It  suggested  a 
whole  series  of  things.  It  called  up  a  picture,  a  story 
— "  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  was  crucified,  whom  God 
raised  up,"  as  Peter  put  it  to  the  magistrates.  And 
doubtless  there  was  that  in  Peter  himself,  born  of  the 
secret  presence  of  Christ  shining  in  his  soul,  which 
conveyed  something  of  the  very  presence  and  power 
of  the  Master,  so  that  to  hear  Peter  speak  that  name, 
and  to  be  in  touch  with  him,  was  to  be  thrilled  and 
moved  by  a  sacred  influence.  Christ  shone  in  those 
eyes  of  tenderness;  Christ  spoke  in  those  tones  of 
courage  and  hope ;  Christ  so  overshadowed  Peter  that 


THE  REMAKING  OF  MANHOOD       267 

his  whole  personality  conveyed  the  atmosphere  of  His 
presence.     Perhaps  that  is  where  we  fail  to-day.     It 
is  because  there  is  so  little  of  Christ  in  us  that  when 
we  speak  the  name,  it  is  only  a  word  which  falls  to 
the  ground  like  an  autumn  leaf,  a  fluttering,  feeble 
thing,  with  no  vibrant  appeal  of  the  Christ  throbbing 
in  our  tones,  no  Christ  accent,  no  splendid  compassion 
and  faith.     Perhaps  that  is  where  we  fail  with  men 
who  know  nothing  of  Christ.     We  do  not  carry  the 
impression  of  Christ  Himself— a  living   presence,  a 
redeeming   spirit,  with  the  print  of  the   nails  upon 
Him,  and  the  lustre  of  the  resurrection,  able  to  bring 
back  into  the  world  the  power  of  all  He  was  and  did 
when  He  lived  in  Palestine  of  old.     The  great  need 
of  the  Church   to-day   is   to   recover   the  power   to 
suggest  Jesus,  to  think  with  His  mind,  to  speak  with 
His  voice,  to  use  His  methods,  and  employ  the  tactics 
of  His  love.     The  men  of  the  Navy  used  to  speak 
of  "the  Nelson  touch"— that  way  of  doing   things 
which   would    embody   the    best    traditions   of    the 
service.      It   is   the   Christ   touch   which   will   make 
the   Church   victorious   in   her    cam.paign.      At   the 
suggestion  of  that  name  two  or  three  things  happened. 
In  a  moment  the  cripple  saw  a  picture  of  the  man 
he  might  be,  walking  and  leaping  and  living  in  the 
fulness  of  his  power.     That  vision  came  to   him  at 
that  moment  as  a  possible  thing.     As  it  took  hold 
of  his  imagination,  his  doubts  and  fears  were  scattered 
and   the   burden   of  impotence  was   lifted   from  his 

will. 

We  have  been  learning,  of  late,  that  the  real 
obstruction  which  keeps  the  will  weak  is  something 
in  the  mind.  "  We  can,  because  we  think  we  can.'* 
The  great  achievement  of  Jesus  was  that  He  made 


26^  THE  VICl^ORY  OF  GOD 

* 
men  believe   the   new  life  was  possible  and  set   the 

will  free   to  live  it.     Perhaps  this  man  had  been  in 

the  depths  of  despair.     Every  time  he  would  rise  to 

walk,  his  weakness  came  to  his  mind  and  hypnotized 

him  into   defeat.     How  many  people  are  there  like 

that   to-day  ?     They   have   a   weakness ;    they   have 

failed ;  they  have  gone  down  in  days  gone  by.     And 

their   very    failure    hypnotizes   them   into   defeat,  so 

that   they  cannot   rise   when   they   would,   and    are 

flung  back    against  every   movement  of  their  souls 

into  the  old  dungeon  of  despair. 

Or  perhaps  it  was  custom  which  had  lain  heavy 
upon  him.  He  had  grown  used  to  his  weakness. 
He  had  always  been  so,  and  time  and  habit  had 
softened  the  calamity.  But  custom  had  become  a 
tyranny,  a  chain.  He  had  no  expectation  of  being 
better,  and  that  very  dullness  and  apathy  had  settled 
down  upon  his  soul,  preventing  him  from  trying  to 
rise.  That  is  the  case  with  some  people  too.  Those 
who  try  to  lift  their  fellows  out  of  some  evil  plight 
tell  us  that  there  is  nothing  so  hard  to  battle  with 
as  apathy.  Its  victims  cannot  be  roused  to  better 
things.  They  are  stupefied,  hardened,  chilled,  so  that 
no  enthusiasm  can  kindle  a  spark  in  the  eye,  or  bring 
a  flush  of  hope  to  the  heart. 

Or  perhaps  this  man  was  quite  satisfied  with  his 
condition.  He  had  got  used  to  it,  got  to  like  it,  and 
to  find  a  certain  security  in  it,  till  the  world  where  he 
would  have  to  work  became  a  terrifying  place  de- 
manding more  energy  than  he  was  willing  to  give. 
There  are  slaves  that  grow  afraid  of  freedom.  There 
are  prisoners  who  get  so  comfortable  in  their  prison, 
that  the  wide  world  becomes  full  of  fears,  and  liberty 
loses  its  attraction      But  when  this  vision  of  Christ 


THE  REMAKING  OF  MANHOOD       269 

shone  in  upon  his  soul,  awakening  the  desire  of  a 
fuller  life,  and  bringing  the  hope  of  it,  these  chains 
were  shattered — these  weights  of  despair,  and  custom 
and  fear  which  had  settled  down  upon  him  were 
lifted,  and  the  will  was  free.  Are  there  some  of  us 
who  are  down  ?  We  have  gone  under,  and  lain 
down  to  our  sin  or  our  circumstance.  We  despair 
of  the  new  chance,  or  the  fuller  life.  Let  us  get 
close  to  Christ  and  listen  to  the  spiritual  suggestions 
which  He  breathes  into  the  soul.  There  is  pardon  ; 
there  is  peace ;  there  is  redemption.  "  Sin  shall  no 
more  have  dominion  over  you."  "  I  am  come  to  seek 
and  to  save  that  which  was  lost."  "  Him  that  cometh 
unto  Me,  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out."  It  is  all  there 
in  Christ.  Silver  and  gold  has  He  none.  Comfort 
and  security  He  does  not  promise.  "In  the  world 
ye  shall  have  tribulation."  Life  is  a  fight,  but  it  is 
a  fight  on  terms  which  will  make  it  victorious  for 
the  man  who  will  listen  to  Christ,  and  dwell  in  Plis 
presence.  It  is  said  that  when  Cromwell  rode 
over  the  field  where  his  men  were  being  flung  back, 
his  very  presence  brought  back  such  courage  and 
hope,  that  their  souls  were  renewed  to  a  victorious 
energy.  The  very  air  was  palpitating  with  new 
possibility,  with  the  sense  of  mastery  and  victory. 
So  it  is  when  Christ  comes  into  the  field.  The  whole 
situation  is  changed.  Will  you  open  up  your  life 
with  all  its  impotence  and  weakness  to  Him — the 
hard  conditions  in  which  you  have  to  live,  the  close 
dungeon  of  your  mind,  where  you  fight  with  tempta- 
tion? That  is  the  secret  of  victory.  He  will  not 
carry  you ;  Peter  did  not  carry  tliis  man.  He  will 
not  make  your  conditions  easy;  Peter  gave  this  man 
nothing  to  smooth  the  path  for  his  crippled  limbs. 


270  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

But  He  will  give  you  something  better,  the  clasp  of 
His  own  strong  hand,  the  contagion  of  His  radiant 
Spirit.  He  will  touch  the  spring  of  your  will.  He 
will  speak  to  your  heart  a  word  of  power  and 
courage.  He  will  say  to  you,  "Rise  up  and 
walk,"  and  at  the  magic  of  that  voice  you  will  have 
strength  to  obey.  The  whole  universe  of  God's  grace 
is  waiting  to  back  you,  waiting  for  that  act  of  faith, 
waiting  for  that  step  into  the  light,  and  love,  and 
splendour  of  the  new  life. 


VICTORIOUS  GLADNESS 

**  And  at  midnight  Paul  and  Silas  sang  praises  unto  God :  and  the 
prisoners  heard  them." — Acts  xvi.  25. 

The  power  of  song  is  proverbial.  There  is  a  magic 
in  it  which  can  charm  the  heart  out  of  its  most  sullen 
moods.  There  are  songs  that  have  won  battles. 
There  are  songs  that  have  led  crusades,  gathering  up 
into  them  the  spirit  of  the  movement  and  giving  it 
the  power  to  renew  the  heart.  A  nation's  character 
is  expressed,  if  not  in  part  moulded,  by  the  songs  it 
sings.  "  Give  me  the  making  of  the  nation's  songs," 
says  some  one,  "  and  I  care  not  who  makes  its  laws." 

One  man  with  a  dream  at  pleasure 
Shall  go  forth  and  conquer  a  crown, 

And  three  with  a  new  song's  measure 
Can  trample  a  kingdom  down. 

But  never  more  wonderful  results  followed  from  a 
song  than  from  this  of  our  text,  "  At  midnight  Paul 
and  Silas  sang  praises  unto  God :  and  the  prisoners 
heard  them."  And  then  the  Scripture  goes  on  to  say, 
"  and  the  prison-doors  were  opened,  and  the  prisoners' 
bands  v/ere  loosed." 

It  appears  a  trifling  thing  for  the  writer  of  this 
story  to  mention,  that  the  prisoners  heard  them.  How 
could  they  help  hearing  them  when  the  song  of  Paul 
and  Silas  rang  through  the  quiet  prison  chamber  at 


271 


272  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

midnight  ?  The  difficulty,  one  would  imagine,  would 
be  not  to  hear  them !  It  seems  so  trifling  that  we 
feel  the  writer  of  the  story  would  not  have  put  it 
there  at  all  unless  there  had  been  something  remark- 
able in  the  fact.  The  exciting  events  of  the  night — 
the  earthquake,  and  the  bursting  prison  doors,  and 
the  conversion  of  the  jailer — would  all  have  hidden 
from  the  writer's  mind  a  little  fact  like  this  if  he  had 
not  felt  it  worth  noting. 

"  And  the  prisoners  heard  them."  When  we  look 
into  it  we  find  there  is  a  deeper  meaning.  It  does 
not  mean  a  mere  casual  hearing,  a  mere  sensation. 
The  word  has  the  sense  of  "  listening."  Whatever  it 
was  that  struck  them  in  Paul's  singing,  they  were 
interested ;  they  were  listening  with  their  minds  en- 
listed, giving  themselves  up  with  attention.  That  is 
the  meaning  of  the  word.  And  it  has  still  a  deeper 
meaning.  In  the  Greek  of  the  Bible  it  is  only  used 
in  one  other  place — where  Samuel  charges  Saul  with 
his  want  of  perception  of  the  voice  of  God.  Can 
we  not  draw  the  conclusion  that  these  prisoners 
were  listening  as  men  listen  to  the  voice  of  God,  with 
their  hearts  attune  for  some  message  of  God,  with 
their  conscience  quick  for  some  word  of  truth ;  in  a 
word,  with  all  the  secret  barriers  down  by  which  men 
are  accustomed  to  shut  out  God  ?  Is  it  too  much  to 
suppose  that  conversions  followed  from  that  singing 
and  changed  lives?  And  is  it  drawing  too  much 
upon  the  imagination  to  suggest  that  Luke  got  his 
information  about  this  incident  from  one  and  another 
of  the  prisoners  themselves,  when  in  the  little  meetings 
of  the  Christians,  they  told  how  the  grace  of  God 
came  in  a  song  at  midnight  and  found  them  in  a  prison 
and  won  its  way  into  their  heart  ?     At  all  events,  the 


VICTORIOUS  GLADNESS  273 

picture  Luke  draws  is  worth  thinking  about.  **  At 
midnight  Paul  and  Silas  sang  praises  unto  God  :  and 
the  prisoners  were  listening  to  them." 

To  begin  with,  it  is  worth  noting  that  they  sang  in 
the  prison  at   all.     It   is    about   the    last    place  one 
would  have  chosen  to  sing  in,  the  last  kind  of  time  to 
sing,  and  the  last  kind  of  attitude  for  singing.     They 
had  been  flung  into  this  prison  to  keep  them  from 
preaching,  and  soundly  beaten,  and  their  feet  locked 
fast  in  the  stocks.     And    in    that  condition,  and   at 
midnight,  Paul  and  Silas  sang  praises  unto  God.     I 
always  look  on  that  as  one  of  the  most  triumphant 
moments  of  New  Testament  Christianity.     The  same 
kind    of  thing  must   have   often    happened.     These 
people   were    accustomed    to   sing   in   all    kinds   of 
situations.     And  that  is  what  faith  ought  to  do  for 
us ;  it  ought  to  give  us  the  power  to  sing  in  all  sorts 
of  devastating  and  difficult  circumstances.     It  is  easy 
enough  to  be  happy  in  pleasant  circumstances  when 
life  is  sunny  and  bright  and  everything  is  going  well. 
The  man  who   cannot   rejoice  in  the  beauty  of  the 
world  around  him  and  the  glad  and  gracious  gift  of 
life,  when  the  sun  is  shining  and  he  has  home  and 
work  and  friendships,  is  a  churlish  creature — or  there 
is  something  far  wrong  with  his  health.     But  to  sing 
in  a  dungeon,  and  at  midnight,  when  happiness  is  a 
victory  and  cheerfulness  is  a  miracle,  that  is  the  special 
gift  and    grace  of   Christianity.     "  For  we  glory    in 
tribulations  also."     "  Count  it  all  joy  when  ye  fall  into 
divers  trials."     "As  sorrowful,  yet  alway  rejoicing." 
That  is  a  Christian  secret — the  serenity  and  gladness 
of  faith  ;  and  more,  the  exuberance  and  buoyancy  of 
faith,  so  that  it  can  sing  in  a  dungeon,  even  joke  on  a 
scaffold,  and  shout  a  challenge  into  the  face  of  death. 
18 


274  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

That  kind  of  spirit  is  a  characteristic  product  of  the 
Christian  faith.  Though  one  could  hardly  say  it  is 
showing  that  product  to-day.  Some  of  us  have  got 
into  the  doldrums  in  spite  of  our  Christianity — some, 
one  fears,  because  of  their  Christianity — mistaking 
solemnity  for  seriousness,  and  a  careworn  look  for  a 
deep  interest  in  the  salvation  of  others.  Here  were 
two  men  who  had  given  up  everything  because  Christ 
had  filled  them  with  a  passionate  longing  to  preach 
the  gospel  to  all  sorts  of  people  they  had  never 
seen ;  these  people  took  them  and  flung  them  into  a 
prison,  and  their  faith  so  kindled  in  that  prison  that 
they  burst  into  singing  and  were  indeed  joyfully 
triumphant.  Let  us  get  hold  of  the  fact  that  this  is 
the  genuine  spirit  of  New  Testament  Christianity. 
"  The  true  saint  is  always  hilarious."  Faith  in  Jesus 
Christ  is  able  to  make  a  man  independent  of  circum- 
stances and  superior  to  his  surroundings.  He  escapes 
not  from  the  prison  in  the  first  place,  but  in  the 
prison.  "  At  midnight  Paul  and  Silas  sang  praises 
unto  God." 

"  And  the  prisoners  were  listening  to  them."  They 
had  an  unseen  audience.  They  did  not  know  the 
prisoners  were  listening  They  were  not  thinking  of 
the  prisoners  at  all.  They  were  thinking  of  God 
and  His  goodness  and  His  unconquerable  and  all- 
providing  love.  But  all  the  time  the  prisoners  were 
listening  to  them. 

Our  unseen  audience  is  one  of  life's  most  familiar 
facts.  We  cannot  do  anything,  say  anything,  but 
others  are  watching  us,  noting  our  bearing,  taking 
stock  of  our  conduct  and  our  whole  attitude  to  life. 
We  may  not  know  it ;  they  may  not  know  it  them- 
selves.    Consciously  or  unconsciously  the  one  half  of 


VICTORIOUS  GLADNESS  275 

the  world  is  playing  eavesdropper  to  the  other  half. 
It  is  the  basis  of  that  tremendous  fact  of  influence 
whereby  something  is  always  going  out  of  us,  if  not 
to  mould  the  lives  of  others,  at  least  to  shape  the 
world  in  which  others  have  to  live.  When  a  great 
politician  addresses  a  meeting,  be  it  large  or  small, 
he  knows  that  his  biggest  audience  is  beyond  him, 
among  people  he  has  never  seen,  who  are  waiting  none 
the  less  for  his  message.  It  is  with  this  responsibility 
in  his  mind  that  he  speaks,  or  ought  to  speak.  But 
this  is  true  of  every  one  of  us.  We  have  all  our 
unseen  audience.  There  are  people  taking  their  cue 
for  life  from  us.  There  are  some  whose  attitude  to 
the  highest  things  is  partly  being  decided  by  us. 
There  are  people  who  are  taking  their  view  of  Jesus 
Christ  from  what  they  see  in  us,  not  consciously 
p  irhaps,  but  by  the  secret  process  which  goes  on  all 
the  time.  We  cannot  "  break  the  bonds  which  God 
decreed  to  bind."  We  cannot  insulate  the  current  of 
our  influence  on  others. 

Furthermore,  what  gave  this  unseen  audience  the 
hearing  ear  and  made  them  listen  so  keenly  was  the 
fact  that  they  were  fellow-prisoners.  They  were 
suffering  the  same  fate;  they  were  chafing  under 
the  same  bonds.  That  suffering  gave  them  a  quick- 
ened interest  They  were  keen  to  know  if  Paul 
and  Silas  had  any  light  on  the  situation.  They  were 
eager  to  learn  what  it  was  that  made  them  so 
cheerful  in  the  prison — what  the  secret  of  that 
strange  victorious  thrill  in  their  singing?  It  was 
more  than  curiosity  that  made  them  listen;  it  was 
need  and  sympathy.  It  matters  not  what  be  our  lot 
of  hardship  or  trouble,  we  are  never  alone.  There 
are  always  our  fellow-prisoners, and  their  fellow-feeling 


276  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

keys  up  their  interest  till  the  slightest  suggestion  that 
touches  their  trouble  will  set  their  heart-strings 
throbbing.  Have  you  ever  noticed  how  a  man  who 
has  some  illness  will  listen  if  you  tell  him  of  just  such 
another  case  as  his?  In  one  of  Mark  Rutherford's 
letters  he  tells  how  after  writing  his  autobiography — 
a  book  which  relates  a  sad  and  depressing  story  of 
tragic  experiences — there  came  thousands  of  letters 
from  people  who  told  him  he  had  described  just  their 
case.  He  had  his  audience,  unseen,  of  fellow-prisoners, 
and  that  fact  made  them  listen  to  him.  It  matters 
not  what  be  our  difficulty,  or  temptation,  or  loss,  we 
are  never  alone  ;  there  are  others  all  around  us  in 
the  same  prison-house  of  sorrow  or  gloom,  and  that 
fact  makes  them  listen  to  us.  It  opens  their  ear. 
It  focuses  their  interest.  What  a  chance  this  reveals 
to  us  of  helping  others !  What  a  bracing  challenge 
it  throws  to  us  in  our  suffering!  What  a  noble 
responsibility !  Whatever  hardship  life  gives  us  to 
bear  there  are  others  round  us  whose  ears  are  tense 
with  interest  and  whose  hearts  are  sensitive  with  pain. 
They  are  looking  to  us  to  catch  the  inspiration  of  our 
spirit.  Have  we  a  besetting  temptation  ?  There  are 
others  with  just  that  fight  to  make,  and  they  are 
watching  us  to  see  how  we  carry  ourselves.  Are 
we  mourning?  Here  is  another  in  tears,  and  he  is 
looking  for  some  strong  hand  to  lead  him  through  the 
valley  of  the  shadow.  Have  we  a  cross  to  bear? 
Some  other  is  near  us  on  that  stony  path,  looking  for 
the  light  upon  our  face.  In  whatever  prison  life  has 
put  us,  we  are  never  alone.  The  prisoners  are  listen- 
ing to  us. 

Now  this  is  surely,  to  begin  with,  an  argument  for 


VICTORIOUS  GLADNESS  277 

a  cheerful  spirit.  If  Paul  and  Silas  had  done  nothing 
by  their  singing  but  to  put  heart  into  these  men  they 
would  have  done  good  service.  To  make  the  prison 
ring  with  melody,  to  bring  gladness  into  tired  eyes 
and  new  hope  into  sullen  and  discouraged  lives — 
surely  that  is  a  great  ministry,  the  very  ministry  of 
Jesus  Christ.  None  of  us  probably  realize  how  much 
we  can  do  for  the  world  about  us  just  by  sunny 
gladness  and  a  cheerful  spirit.  "  The  day  was  dark 
and  gloomy,"  some  one  once  wrote  in  the  Boston 
Herald,  "  but  Phillips  Brooks  came  down  Newspaper 
Row  and  all  was  bright."  There  are  people  whose 
very  presence  can  chase  the  clouds  away  and  scatter 
gloom.  They  go  about  "lighting  fires  in  cold 
rooms."  Stevenson  was  sunk  all  his  life  in  one  of 
life's  darkest  dungeons — the  dungeon  of  ill-health — 
and  he  took  it  as  his  mission  in  life  to  turn  his 
dungeon  into  a  lighthouse.  He  made  a  task  of 
happiness.  "  This  is  our  post,"  he  said  of  the  place 
of  trouble,  "  and  our  business  is  to  make  happiness  for 
others."  I  put  it  to  you,  if  it  would  not  change  the 
face  of  life  for  many  people  if  we  learned  to  say  of 
our  dark  or  difficult  situation,  "This  is  my  post;  I 
am  on  duty  here,  on  duty  by  the  appointment  of  God, 
and  my  business  is  to  make  happiness  for  others." 
One  of  the  very  subtlest  temptations  that  can  come 
to  good  people  is  the  temptation  of  self-pity,  and  of 
all  depressing  people  there  are  none  so  depressing  as 
those  in  whom  the  divine  gift  of  sympathy  and  pity 
runs  inward,  making  a  luxury  of  misery.  Whatever 
happens  to  us,  let  us  try  to  fling  off  the  weeds  of  self- 
pity  and  put  on  the  King's  uniform  of  self-forgetfulness, 
exchanging  "  the  garment  of  praise  for  the  spirit  of 
heaviness,"  and,  unconscious  to  ourselves,  the  midnight 


278  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

gloom  will  be  shattered  for  some  other  afflicted  ones, 
even  as  Paul  and  Silas  sang  praises  unto  God,  and 
the  prisoners  heard  them. 

But  this  was  not  merely  a  song  of  courage  ;  it  was 
a  song  of  faith.  That  was  why  it  had  such  a  thrilling 
effect  on  the  prisoners.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  preach 
courage  to  men  who  are  facing  the  storm,  the  simple 
duty  of  setting  their  teeth  and  going  through  with  it. 
But  there  is  no  gospel  in  that,  and  it  may  sometimes 
be  taken  for  an  impertinence.  The  gospel  comes  in 
when  you  tell  them  of  the  presence  with  them  in  the 
storm  of  the  Lord  God.  That  is  the  secret  of  the 
difference  between  the  Stoic  and  the  Christian.  In 
The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth — one  of  our  greatest 
novels-^the  hero,  sore  downcast,  is  going  through 
a  perilous  forest  and  is  cheered  every  now  and 
then  by  his  stout-hearted  comrade  with  this  word, 
"  Courage,  comrade,  the  devil  is  dead  !  "  The  phrase 
served  its  purpose.  It  is  as  good  as  anything  else  to 
express  the  heart  that  is  not  afraid  of  shadows.  But 
true  courage  has  its  source  in  faith,  and  the  secret  of 
faith  is  not  pretence  that  the  devil  is  dead,  but  con- 
fidence in  a  living  and  victorious  God.  The  word 
that  sets  our  pulses  leaping  is  not  the  word  that  tells 
us  to  shut  our  eyes  to  difficulties.  It  is  the  word  that 
tells  us  how  difficulties  can  be  overcome,  and  hard- 
ships vanquished,  and  sorrow  transfigured,  and  all 
things  made  to  work  together  for  good.  That  was 
the  song  which  Paul  and  Silas  sang  in  the  prison  ; 
and  being  what  it  was,  born  of  the  consciousness  of 
God's  presence,  it  filled  the  prison  with  the  thought 
of  God,  and  set  free  His  love  and  grace  in  such  a 
way  that  the  crust  of  sin  and  indifference  in  these 
men's  hearts  was  pierced  and  God  broke  in. 


VICTORIOUS  GLADNESS  279 

It  is  the  same  kind  of  story  Browning  tells  in  "  Pippa 
Passes."  The  little  Italian  girl,  a  silkworker  in  a 
factory,  has  a  holiday — her  one  holiday  in  the  year — 
and  for  sheer  gladness  she  goes  out  singing  a  song. 
But  it  was  a  song  of  faith,  "  God's  in  His  heaven." 
And  as  she  went  along  the  street  all  unconscious  of 
anything  but  her  own  glad  heart  and  the  loving 
goodness  of  God,  the  words  and  music  floated  into 
casements  here  and  there  and  changed  lives  at  critical 
moments.  There  were  two  people  living  in  sin  whose 
hearts  were  awakened  to  clean  shame  and  real  hunger 
for  goodness.  They  touched  the  soul  of  an  artist 
who  was  about  to  give  himself  up  to  an  angry  passion, 
and  set  him  free.  They  reached  the  heart  of  an 
anarchist  who  had  made  up  his  mind  to  kill  the  king 
and  stirred  his  buried  patriotism.  And  the  girl  went 
home  and  slept  her  sleep,  unconscious  of  what  her 
song  had  done  and  her  spirit  had  wrought  by  bring- 
ing to  people  a  message  that  suggested  God. 

It  is  for  this  faith  the  world  is  listening,  in  spite 
of  all  appearances.  As  a  writer  puts  it  in  a  recent 
novel :  "  It  may  be  true  that  men  shall  not  live  by 
bread  alone,  though  there  are  multitudes  who  are 
doing  it  and  doing  very  well  on  it.  But  I  tell  you 
that  plumb  down  in  the  crypt  and  abyss  of  every 
man's  soul,  there  is  a  hunger  for  better  food  than  this 
earthly  stuff."  How  is  the  world  going  to  become 
convinced  of  God?  That  is  the  great  problem. 
How  are  men  going  to  be  brought  to  see  Jesus? 
Life  does  its  part,  by  taking  people  sooner  or  later 
and  bringing  them  into  some  kind  of  prison-house. 
For  a  time  comes  when  life  takes  the  man  who  shuts 
out  God  and  walls  him  up  in  his  own  godless  world 
with  his  own  unillumined  soul.     Life  plays  its  part ; 


2  8o  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

that  is  the  one  side.  But  when  people  are  brought 
into  the  prison-house  ?  That  is  where  our  task  comes 
in.  "  Ye  are  My  witnesses,"  said  Jesus.  *'  Ye  are  the 
salt  of  the  earth.  Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world." 
Are  there  any  more  startling  challenging  words  than 
these?  Christ  meant  them,  as  He  meant  every  word 
He  said.  It  is  a  very  extraordinary  thing  that  when 
Jesus  left  the  world,  He  left  no  other  custodians  of 
His  truth  and  His  message  than  twelve  men  whose 
hearts  were  kindled  into  a  radiant  faith — no  books, 
no  parchments,  no  monuments,  nothing  but  a  few  souls 
with  the  inner  lamp  lit.  And  from  those  lamps  the 
flame  spread  because  it  was  the  living  fire  of  God,  till 
Paul  and  others  were  kindled  by  it  and  went  out  to 
carry  the  flame. 

Now  how  does  faith  shine  ?  It  has  many  beams. 
But  one  of  its  incandescent  points  is  just  this  clash 
with  circumstances,  where  the  spirit  becomes  victorious 
in  a  serene  and  confident  gladness  which  sings  in  a 
prison.  There  is  something  tremendously  convincing 
in  a  spirit  that  can  thus  rejoice  in  trouble  and  sing  a 
song  of  praise  to  God  out  of  a  dungeon.  It  suggests 
a  secret  spring,  a  hidden  treasure.  It  makes  men 
feel  that  somehow  this  man  is  in  possession  of  a  secret 
storehouse  of  vitality.  It  makes  people  wonder,  and 
when  people  begin  to  wonder  they  begin  to  explore 
and  are  already  on  the  threshold  of  some  divine 
discovery.  But  more  than  that,  such  a  spirit  carries 
the  contagion  of  its  own  radiant  vitality.  It  suggests 
Jesus.  Dare  we  say  it  does  more.  Dare  we  say  it 
brings  people  into  touch  with  the  very  Spirit  of  Jesus  ? 
For  every  Christian  man  is  a  Christian  spirit  who  is 
alive  in  his  being  with  the  Spirit  of  Jesus.  Have  we 
never  met  with  people,  in  whose  bearing  there  was 


VICTORIOUS  GLADNESS  281 

something  that  so  powerfully  suggested  Jesus,  that 
when  they  went — leaving  with  us  a  lingering  bright- 
ness and  peace,  which  quieted  and  exalted  our  spirit 
— it  suddenly  came  to  us  that  we  had  been  in  touch 
with  Him?  For  a  moment  His  Face  had  looked  in 
upon  our  troubled  way.  "  Ye  are  My  witnesses,"  said 
Christ.  A  witness  is  one  who  reflects  something  he 
has  seen  ;  and  a  Christian  man,  according  to  Christ,  is 
one  who  gives  his  life  to  seeing  something  in  Christ 
which  he  reflects  to  the  world  in  a  life  which  is 
victorious  with  cheerfulness  in  the  most  depressing 
circumstances  and  with  love  to  the  most  discouraging 
people. 

That  is  how  the  world  is  going  to  be  redeemed. 
Men  are  not  going  to  be  argued  into  goodness ;  they 
are  going  to  be  won  into  it.  They  are  not  going  to 
be  lectured  into  the  Kingdom ;  they  are  going  to  be 
"  called  "  into  it,  called  irresistibility  by  the  worth  of 
lives  which  are  the  product  of  faith  in  Christ.  Perhaps 
our  prison  is  deep  and  dark,  our  case  is  bitter,  and 
our  life  is  lonely.  How  can  we  reach  this  faith  which 
sings  in  a  dungeon?  How  do  we  get  this  plant 
which  blossoms  in  the  dark  ?  "  How  can  we  sing 
the  Lord's  song  in  a  strange  land  ?  "  The  great  secret 
is  a  new  look  at  that  love  of  God  in  Jesus  which  is 
ours  in  Him,  a  love  which  is  victorious  over  every- 
thing, a  love  which  appoints  our  every  situation  and 
gives  us  grace  to  find  in  it  some  redeeming  task  or 
some  deepening  experience  and  some  new  discovery 
of  His  truth  and  love.  There  is  no  strange  land  for 
the  man  who  has  discovered  that  God  is  love  and 
God  is  everywhere.  The  surface  look  of  things  may 
be  depressing,  but  the  same  challenging,  comforting 
voice  is  still  in  our  ear,  the  same  purpose  is  at  work. 


2  82  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

And  the  deeper  the  darkness,  the  sterner  the  circum- 
stances, the  more  opportunity  there  is  for  the  triumph 
of  faith,  and  the  more  perfectly  will  we  be  able  to  help 
others  whom  suffering  has  swept  within  the  orbit  of 
our  influence. 

One  thing  is  sure,  if  we  live  near  to  Christ  and 
catch  His  Spirit  in  everything,  we  will  never  lack  an 
audience  whatever  our  limitations  or  our  defects  ;  and 
what  is  more  important,  we  will  never  lack  an  in- 
fluence. Never  a  life  lived  in  the  Kingdom,  never  a 
brave  word  spoken,  never  a  true  stand  made  but  finds 
its  mark  in  God's  good  time,  in  His  own  way. 

I  breathed  a  song  into  the  air  : 

It  fell  to  earth  I  know  not  where, 

For  who  has  sight  so  keen  and  strong 
That  it  can  follow  the  flight  of  a  song ; 

But  that  song  at  last,  from  beginning  to  end, 

I  found  again  in  the  heart  of  a  friend. 

"  My  word  shall  not  return  unto  Me  void,"  saith 
the  Lord  God. 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  FAITH  " 

"  And  they  answered  and  said  to  the  king,  We  are  not  careful  to 
answer  thee  in  this  matter.  If  it  be  so,  our  God,  whom  we  serve, 
is  able  to  deliver  us  from  the  burning  fiery  furnace ;  and  He  will  deliver 
us  out  of  thine  hand,  O  king.  But  if  not,  be  it  known  unto  thee,  O 
king,  that  we  will  not  serve  thy  gods,  nor  worship  the  golden  image 
which  thou  hast  set  up." — Dan.  iii.  16-18. 

The  Book  of  Daniel  is  a  story  with  a  purpose.     It 

was  written  to  steady  the  hearts  of  patriotic  Jews  who 

were  passing  through  one  of  the  severest  persecutions 

for  their  faith  that  ever  men  have  passed   through. 

The    story   is   one   of    those   beautiful   things    that 

crystallize  out  of  the  furnace  of  man's  pain,  to  become 

a  star  in  his  sky  and  cheer  him  and  his  successors, 

whenever,  on   their   way  to  God,  the  darkness   falls 

upon  them. 

There  is  no  need  to  dwell  on  the  circumstances  of 

the  time  when  it  was  written,  even  though  we  knew 

the  precise  date.     The  stage  is  set  for  any  period  of 

time,  for  every  trial  of  faith  has  the  same  elements. 

There   is   always,  for    instance,  the    golden    image. 

Where  will  you  find  a  better  symbol  of  the  material 

world   and   all   its   glittering   appeal   to   the  human 

heart  ?     And  there  is  always  a  burning  fiery  furnace 

— the  threat  of  loss  or  suffering  for  those  who  will 

spurn  the  worship  of  the  world  and  follow  conscience. 

It  is  a  picture  of  the  eternal  temptation,  which  comes 

in   many   different  forms,  to   give   ourselves   to  the 

283 


2  84  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

things  that  are  seen,  to  money  and  fashion  and  what 
men  call  the  solid  realities,  and  fling  away  our  faith 
in  the  unseen,  which  in  the  eyes  of  men  looks  merely 
so  much  folly.     That  temptation  is  the  crux  of  re- 
ligion.    The  final  question  of  our  loyalty  to  God  is 
not  intellectual,  though  we   may  persuade  ourselves 
it  is  so.     God  meets  us,  not  with  a  problem  for  the 
mind,  but  with  a  moral  challenge  in  actual  life.     The 
question,  really,  is  whether  we  shall  bow  down  our 
manhood  before  the  appeal  of  pleasure  or  sense  and 
adopt  the  selfish  standards  of  the  world,  or  whether 
we  shall  be  true  to  the  inward  voices  of  our  souls  and 
trust  them  as  the  whisper  of  God.     That  choice  meets 
us  all  in  small  things  as  in  great,  and  it  meets   us 
time  and  again.     We  may  settle  the  question  once  for 
all   in  what  we  call  the  choice  of  Christ,  and   ever 
after  it  is  easier ;  like  a  man  going  along  a  road  with 
a  fixed  goal  we  have  settled  our  direction,  and  it  is 
merely  a  matter  of  going  on.     But  even  so,  life  meets 
us  every  now  and  then,  as  it  did  Jesus,  with  some 
crisis  where  we  have  to  reaffirm  our  faith  and  say  to 
ourselves  whether  we  are  going  on.     Or  a  day  comes 
when  the  guiding  light  in  the  soul  seems  to  burn  dim. 
We  become  perplexed  and  are  brought  to  a  stand- 
still and  have  to  fight  like  Christian  in  the  Valley  of 
Humiliation  with  one  or  other  of  ApoUyon's  tribe,  for 
the  very  life  of  our  spirit.     Few  men  who  face  life 
seriously  in  the  name  of  Christ  but  have  to  meet  this 
conflict,  especially  in   a   day   like   this.     No  man  is 
properly  equipped  for  the  Christian  way  who  has  not 
found  a  method  of  meeting  the  last  dark  question  of  the 
soul  and  knows  how  to  plant  his  feet  upon  the  rock, 
when  before  him  there  stands  the  golden  image  and 
the  burning  fiery  furnace,  and  he  has  to  choose. 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  FAITH         285 

The  message  of  this  story,  as  I  read  it,  and  the 
picture  of  these  three  men,  give  us  the  right  position 
and  the  final  answer.  Their  stand  is  the  stand  of 
faith  with  its  back  to  the  wall,  and  theirs  is  the  one 
stand  which  cannot  be  shaken.  There  are  three 
stages  in  it. 

To  begin  with,  they  did  not  shrink  from  the  choice 
or  try  to  evade  the  issue.     "  We  are  not  careful  to 
answer  thee  in  this  matter."     They  were  not  going 
to  try  to  make  the  king  think  better  of  them  than 
he  did,  or  to  burke  the  choice  by  any  back   door 
of  skilful  argument.     They  were  clever  men,  and  if 
they  had    cared  to  use  their   eloquence   they  might 
have  found  a  way  of  getting  out  of  the  trap  without 
either  publicly  denying  their  God  or  doing  any  dis- 
respect  to   the   golden    image.     Neither    were   they 
going  to  do  any  juggling  with  their  own  consciences 
to  bow  down  to  the  image,  for  instance,  with  some 
private  reservation  of  their  own.     Some  people  might 
have  argued  that  it  was  better  in  the  long  run  to  save 
their   lives  that  they  might   serve    God  in  Babylon, 
even  at  the  cost  of  a  seeming  surrender,  than  to  let 
their  influence  be  lost  for  a  trifling  scruple.     There 
was  a  Mr.  Facing-both-ways  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
you  remember,  and  Mr.  Facing-both-ways  is  a  very 
familiar  character.     It  is  terribly  difficult  to  be  in  the 
world  and  yet  not  of  the  world ;  it  is  fatally  easy  to 
be  of  the  world's  spirit  though  not  in  the  world's  ways. 
Some  men  never  take  a  stand  if  they  can  help  it,  and 
then  are  careful  to  see  they  are  in  a  good  majority. 
There  is  a  method  called  compromise,  which  is  often 
only  a  way  of  settling  big  questions  without  either 
bowing  down  to  the  golden  image  or  getting  too  close 
to  the  burning  fiery  furnace.     This  way  very  often 


2  86  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

attracts  us  when  we  come  up  against  the  hard  choices 
of  life.  Sometimes,  however,  we  cannot  avoid  the 
issue.  Let  us  thank  God  if  we  cannot.  For  with 
every  choice  God  is  meeting  us  with  a  chance  to 
reveal  our  manhood  and  forcing  us  to  take  a  step  in 
vital  living.  Every  choice  is  the  Divine  pathway  of 
self-determination.  "Choose  Thou  my  path,  I  do 
not  ask  to  see,"  may  seem  sometimes  a  very  beautiful 
sentiment.  But  we  dare  not  forget  that  this  hymn  of 
Newman's  was  written  of  that  Church  which  treats 
her  children  like  babes  in  a  nursery,  and  discourages 
the  use  of  man's  own  insight.  In  the  long  run 
there  is  no  other  method  of  finding  our  way  except 
by  choosing  it.  It  is  the  Providence  of  God,  His 
way  of  training  us,  to  make  us  choose.  The  biggest 
hardship  about  the  slave  system,  a  writer  tells  us, 
is  not  the  cruelties  which  are  practised  on  the  slaves, 
for  in  some  cases  the  slaves  were  not  badly  treated ; 
the  deepest  hardship  of  the  system  is  that  it  takes 
away  "  the  blessed  luxury  of  choice."  Freedom  is  a 
gift  of  God,  but  true  freedom  is  only  fully  ours  as  we 
win  it  and  exercise  it  in  the  choices  of  life.  The 
insight  to  see  our  way  is  our  most  precious  possession  ; 
it  is  the  inward  vision  by  which  we  see  God.  But 
insight  only  grows  by  meeting  and  making  decisions 
for  ourselves.  Thank  God  if  life  forces  upon  us  a 
choice  between  right  and  wrong  or  faith  and  no  faith, 
which  cannot  be  evaded.  The  worst  thing  that  can 
happen  to  us  is  to  find  ourselves  adrift  upon  an  ocean 
so  easy  and  calm  it  never  brings  us  up  against  a 
situation  where  we  have  to  grasp  the  helm  and  settle 
where  we  are  going.  The  great  thing  is  to  face  a 
dilemma  squarely  and  seriously,  seeing  it  with  open 
eyes  for  what  it  is,  without  camouflage   or  evasion. 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  FAITH         287 

If  we  see  it  and  face  it  fairly,  the  choice  is  as  good  as 
made.  For  no  man  can  see  evil  with  the  naked  soul 
and  love  it,  and  no  man  can  see  goodness  with  the 
open  eye  and  shun  it — if  in  the  depth  of  his  being  he 
is  ready  to  take  God's  way.  So  Daniel's  companions 
faced  the  choice  unmasked.  "  We  are  not  careful  to 
answer  thee  in  this  matter." 

But  now  we  come  to  the  foundations  of  that  faith 
on  which  they  took  their  stand.  First  of  all  they 
took  their  stand  trusting  in  what  we  call  Providence. 
"Our  God,  whom  we  serve,  is  able  to  deliver  us  from 
the  burning  fiery  furnace."  They  believed  that  God 
would  see  them  through  and  would  not  let  them 
down.  After  all,  they  said  to  themselves,  this  world 
is  in  the  control  of  God.  However  strongly  the 
game  may  seem  to  run  in  favour  of  evil,  there  are 
other  moves  open  to  God  by  which  the  plans  of  evil 
may  be  checkmated.  The  devil  may  set  the  world 
on  fire,  but  "  the  framework  of  the  universe  is  fire- 
proof." Wrong  cannot  heat  a  furnace  which  God 
cannot  put  out. 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  this  ancient  view  of 
Providence  as  the  benevolent  interference  of  God — 
and  the  war  has  somewhat  shaken  it — it  is  well  to 
keep  an  open  mind.  How  the  spiritual  and  the 
material  are  related  we  do  not  know.  Wonderful 
forces  can  be  set  in  motion,  through  prayer  and  faith, 
which  defy  explanation.  The  popularity  of  faith- 
healing  and  spiritualism,  for  one  thing,  are  a  revolt  of 
the  human  soul  against  the  crude  dogmatism  of  matter. 
Whatever  the  laws  may  be  that  govern  the  world,  they 
have  a  moral  root.  In  the  long  run  the  universe  is  on 
the  side  of  the  man  who  is  on  the  side  of  God.  Deep 
down  at  the  base  of  things,  love  fashioned  the  earth  in 


288  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

the  interests  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Evil  may  play 
fast  and  loose  with  the  world  for  a  while,  but  only 
for  a  while.  Sooner  or  later  the  men  who  kindle  the 
fiery  furnace  are  consumed  by  the  product  of  their 
own  evil  genius.  They  who  use  force  to  crush  right- 
eousness are  met  and  destroyed  by  the  very  forces 
they  have  called  into  being.  Or  what  is  better  still, 
as  Christ  has  taught  us,  the  very  suffering  they  create 
sets  free  the  love  which  will  smite  them  to  the  heart 
with  shafts  of  shame  and  compel  them  in  sore  con- 
trition to  lay  their  weapons  at  God's  feet. 

Are  some  of  us  faced  with  an  unpopular  way  for 
conscience'  sake?     Are  we  meeting  loss  in  business 
because  we  have  followed  the  clean  way  of  honour? 
Then  let  us  pluck  up  heart.     Our  way  is  still  in  the 
keeping  of  God,  and  He  knows  all  about  it.     Count- 
less people  can  tell  of  cases  where  a  brave  stand  in 
the  face  of  hopeless  odds  suddenly  changed  the  situa- 
tion even  to  their  material  advantage.     There  are  no 
promises  to  that  effect  in  the  New  Testament,  else 
religion  would  be  turned  into  a  choice  of  the  best 
bargain,  and   the  teaching  of  Christ  into  "a  handy 
book  for  the  successful  merchant,"  to  use  Stevenson's 
caustic  comment  on  Pepys's  version  of  seeking  first 
the  Kingdom.     What  God  wants  is  the  spirit  that 
does  not  care  for  these  things,  but  leaves  them  all  to 
Him.     The  paradox  of  the  Kingdom  is  that  He  does 
care  for  the   material  things    of   those  who  give  up 
caring  for  them.     That   has   often  happened.     Con- 
sequences are  God's  department.     ''  Our  God,  whom 
we  serve,  is  able  to  deliver  us  from  the  burnmg  fiery 
furnace;  and  He  will  deliver  us  out  of  thine  hand,  O 

king."  ,  . 

But  the  faith  of  these  men  did  not  rest  there,  tor 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  FAITH         289 

•  that  standing-ground  is  not  deep  enough  to  meet  the 
facts  of  life,  in  the  tempting  moment.     We  do  not 
know    what  happened  at  this  point.     Perhaps   they 
heard  a  titter,  or  saw  a  sneering  look  on  the  faces  of 
those  who  were  standing  round  ;  perhaps  they  heard 
a  cynical  whisper, "  We  shall  soon  see."     And  it  flashed 
upon   them— What    if   God    did    not   deliver    them! 
What  if  they  did  perish  after  all !     Where  would  they 
be  then  ?     What  would  be  the  good  of  it  all  ?     And 
just  as  suddenly  the  assurance  of  God's  love  and  care 
shone  up  in  their  soul.     Even  if  God  did  not  deliver 
their  body,  His  love  was  stronger  than  death  or  hell. 
The   finest  passage  in  the  whole  range   of   English 
literature,  according  to    Professor    Saintbury,  is   the 
famous  lyric  about  love,  "  Love  is  strong  as  death." 
What  gave  that  passage  its  lyrical  beauty  was  just 
the  overwhelming  sense  of  love's  power  and  precious- 
ness,  its  victorious  endurance.     Shall  the  love  of  God 
who'  put  it  in  man's  heart  be  less  than  the  love  it 
created?     When  Luther  was  making  his  last  brave 
stand   they   sent  an  emissary  from    Rome  to  brow- 
beat him.     The  messenger  drew  a  picture  of  all  the 
forces    against    him,  kings    and    nobles   in   all   their 
glittering  array  of  pomp  and  powder.     "Where  will 
Pou   be  then,  little  monk,  in  the  face  of  all   these? 
"  There,  as  now,"  was  his  answer,  "  in  the  hands  of 
Almighty  God."     Was  it  a  vision  of  this   almighty 
love  which  flooded  the  hearts  of  these  men  as  they 
made  their  stand?     Did  they  realize  that  to  do  His 
will  and  keep  His  love  in  a  great  loyalty,  is  its  own 
reward?     Was  it  a  glimpse  of  His  Face  that  shone 
upon  them  which  made  them  "  endure  as  seeing  Him 
who  is  invisible."     Was  it  this  that  taught  them  the 
noble  answer,  "  And  if  not,  be  it  known  unto  thee, 
19 


290  THE   VICrOHY  OF  GOD 

O  king,  that  we  will  not  serve  thy  gods,  nor  worship 
the  golden  image  which  thou  hast  set  up"? 

Or  is  there  another  view  ?     Were  their  hearts  visited 
by  a  dark  doubt  ?     There  is  a  lingering  doubt  of  God 
which   haunts   the  footsteps  of  faith,  seeking   some 
moment    when    our  hearts   are  off  their  guard   and 
sorely  tempted,  to  get  in  with  its  treacherous  sugges- 
tion.    Show  us    how  your    God  works  and  we   will 
believe  in  Him.     How  do  you  know  that  this  religion 
of  yours  is  not  a  great  illusion  ?     How  can  you  be 
sure  that  there  is  a  God  at  all,  or  that  in  this  universe 
there  is  anything  else  except  blind  chance  or  some 
soulless  power  in  whose  eyes  we  are  of  no  more  value 
than  the  leaves  that  fall  from  the  trees  in  autumn  ? 
How  do  you  know  ?     Where  is  the  proof? 

That  is  the  kind  of  suggestion  which  the  man  of 
faith  has  to  meet  tim.e  and  again  out  in  the  world  and 
in  the  lonely  spaces  of  his  own  soul.     I  wonder  if  any 
of  us,  though  we  may  have  been  all  our  lives  pro- 
fessing Christians,  are  ever   visited   by  the  question 
whether  there  be  a  God  at  all,  and  whether  our  experi- 
ence is  not  just  some  cruel  illusion.     Are  there  some 
of  us  perhaps  who  have  been  vexed  by  the  suggestion 
that  we  have  nothing  to   answer   the   sneer   of   the 
world    and    no    real    grip   of    faith   at   all?     These 
moments  meet  nearly  every  man.     Is  there  a  faith 
which  cannot  be  shaken  ?     Is  there  any  stand  which 
we  can  take  which  is  irresistible,  which,  if  we  take  it 
and  hold  on,  will  God  hold  us  fast  in  the  strongest 
current  ? 

This  brings  me  to  my  point.  There  is,  in  the 
last  resort,  no  proof  of  religion  by  argument,  though 
faith  has  its  intellectual  buttresses.     But  deep  down 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  FAITH         291 

below  all  arguments  the  proof  of  religion  is  a  vision 
of  something  which  you  see  to  be  supremely  good,  of 
something  for  which,  in  fact,  you  discover  you  are 
willing  to  die.  That  was  the  position  of  these  men. 
They  were  losing  their  faith  or  losing  their  lives, 
faced  with  the  choice  between  faith  and  the  furnace, 
and  they  suddenly  discovered  that  loyalty  to  God 
and  purity  and  reverence  were  things  for  which 
they  were  willing  to  die,  things  which  were  far  better 
than  prosperity  and  riches,  the  favour  of  kings  and 
and  even  life  itself.  "  If  not,  if  we  have  to  die,  be  it 
known  unto  you,  O  king,  that  we  will  not  serve  thy 
gods,  nor  worship  the  golden  image  which  thou  hast 
set  up."  What  is  that  thing  which  they  had  seen  ? 
F.  W.  Robertson  has  a  well-known  passage  in  which 
he  makes  the  same  point,  "  When  everything  is 
wrapped  in  hideous  uncertainty  I  know  of  but  one 
way  in  which  a  man  may  come  forth  from  this  agony 
scatheless.  ...  If  there  be  no  God  and  no  future  life, 
even  then  it  is  better  to  be  generous  than  selfish, 
better  to  be  chaste  than  licentious,  better  to  be  brave 
than  a  coward."  But  what  is  a  man  doing  who  is 
staking  his  faith  on  that  inner  value  ?  He  is  staking 
his  life  on  God,  or  to  put  it  in  terms  of  Jesus,  he  is 
taking  his  stand  for  the  things  for  which  Christ  stood, 
the  precious  things  which  grow  up  and  bloom  in  the 
shadow  of  His  influence — for  when  we  stand  for 
Christ  we  are  standing  for  these  things,  or  we  are  not 
seeing  Jesus  at  all.  That  allegiance  of  our  souls  in 
the  moral  crises  of  life  to  goodness,  and  purity,  and 
love  is  the  reality  of  our  allegiance  to  Jesus.  All  we 
need  to  do  is  to  recognize  it  and  to  ask  whether  the 
life  that  shone  in  Jesus  be  not  the  heart  of  the 
universe. 


292  THE  VICTORY    OF  GOD 

In  any  case  this  is  the  last  stand  of  faith,  the  faith 
which  cannot  be  shaken.  It  is  the  deep  assurance, 
striking  the  spirit  with  a  gleam  of  heaven's  own  light, 
that  goodness  and  righteousness  have  a  value  which 
no  earthly  standards  can  measure.  They  belong  to 
the  realm  of  the  priceless.  They  shine  by  a  light 
which  borrows  nothing  from  the  world's  rewards  and 
which  cannot  be  dimmed,  though  sun  and  moon 
withdraw  themselves.  These  men  had  reached  rock- 
bottom.  Even  if  they  were  burned  up  in  the  furnace 
and  all  their  dreams  were  mist  and  their  faith  a 
pathetic  illusion,  still  they  knew  it  was  better  not  to 
worship  the  golden  image.  That  was  their  confidence, 
and  no  power  in  earth  or  hell  could  shake  it.  He  who 
takes  that  stand  in  a  dark  hour  is  unassailable.  And 
he  has  his  reward.  For  the  truth  he  holds  with  his 
feeble  hand  will  turn  out  one  day  to  be  a  Hand  which 
holds  him.  The  light  he  sees  will  grow  till  he  finds  it 
none  other  than  the  Face  of  God.  Standing  with  his 
back  to  that  wall  he  will  discover  that  the  wall  is  the 
pressure  of  God's  love. 

So  Daniel's  brave  companions  found  it.  God  re- 
sponded to  their  faith,  as  He  always  does.  The 
response  was  of  two  kinds.  On  the  one  hand  it  came 
in  the  kind  of  men  it  made  of  them  and  their  larger 
influence  for  God  in  the  community.  They  were 
bigger  men  afterwards  and  every  one  felt  the  deepened 
power  of  their  victorious  personalities.  It  is  true 
the  writer  of  the  story  represent  them  as  having  been 
miraculously  saved  in  the  furnace.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment people  were  always  looking  for  this  kind  of 
marvel.  They  were  alwa}'s  hoping  for  some  miracu- 
lous intervention  of  God  ;  it  was  their  view  of  justice. 
But  God's  miraculous  entry  into  human  life,  as  we 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  FAITH         293 

know  in  Jesus,  is  through  the  miracle  of  a  victorious 
man,  whom  faith  in  Him  makes  more  than  conqueror. 
How  do  you  explain  the  life  of  Jesus  ?  It  was  the  pro- 
duct of  a  soul  living  in  perfect  faith,  with  undimmed 
consciousness  of  God  the  Father.  A  life  like  His  is 
the  clear  proof  of  faith.  For  His  courage.  His  peace, 
His  serenity,  His  loving-heartedness,  are  God's  re- 
sponse to  the  man  who  will  stand  where  Christ  stood 
and  for  the  thing  for  which  He  stood.  Agnosticism 
cannot  create  a  personality  like  Jesus.  The  denial  of 
God  cannot  create  a  life  like  His.  Only  faith  in 
Christ  and  in  the  God  who  comes  to  meet  us  in  Him 
can  produce  the  same  kind  of  life,  the  same  quality 
of  loving,  the  same  victory  over  sin  and  suffering,  and 
hatred  and  death.  That  is  the  proof  of  faith.  It 
touches  springs  of  power  which  can  remove  mountains. 
It  awakens  love  in  loveless  hearts.  It  comes  into  a 
crippled  soul,  to  make  it  strong,  and  a  man  in 
bondage,  to  set  him  free.  The  triumph  of  these  men 
in  the  furnace  was  a  miracle,  but  their  spirit  was  a 
greater  miracle,  and  that  miracle  was  the  creative  act 
of  God  responding  to  their  faith. 

But  there  is  another  response — the  consciousness  of 
a  Divine  fellowship.  There  appeared  in  the  furnace 
with  them,  "  One  like  unto  the  Son  of  Man."  God's 
great  answer  to  our  faith  is  the  assurance  of  what  we 
call  His  presence.  We  may  not  realize  it  in  feeling, 
but  we  know.  All  kinds  of  men  have  had  it  who 
have  made  the  great  stand  and  taken  the  adventurous 
way.  Read  the  simple  autobiography  of  Dr.  Wilfred 
Grenfell  of  Labrador.  His  faith  was  very  elementary 
at  first.  He  tells  us  he  stood  for  Christ  because 
the  one  shining  reality  in  his  life  was  his  mother's 
unselfish    love.      That   was    the    thing    which    was 


294  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

priceless,  the  thing  for  which  he  would  have  been 
willing  to  give  his  life.  But  as  he  followed  the  great 
adventure  and  stood  for  his  faith  through  years  of 
hardship  and  self-denying  service  on  the  wild  coasts 
of  Labrador,  he  says  :  "  God  strengthened  the  founda- 
tions on  which  my  faith  stood  till  Christ  now  means 
more  to  me  as  a  living  presence."  Paul  had  the 
same  experience.  "  Who  shall  separate  us  from  the 
love  of  Christ?"  That  was  his  way  of  putting  it. 
Some  people  may  call  it  fancy,  but  it  is  idle  to  cast 
doubts  on  the  experience  of  men  till  we  have  been 
where  they  have  been. 

The  sense  of  Christ's  presence  does  not  always 
come  to  us  in  the  same  way.  But  in  some  way 
it  comes,  the  deep,  sure  consciousness  that  He  and 
we  are  one.  And  it  comes  when  we  go  out  to 
stand  for  Him  and  with  Him,  out  beyond  the  little 
interests  of  our  own  life  to  where  love  meets  the 
sin  and  suffering  of  the  world  in  the  shadows  of 
Calvary.  F.  W.  Robertson  was  once  talking  with  a 
lady  who  was  taking  him  to  task  for  his  views.  She 
ended  by  saying  she  would  have  to  inform  the 
authorities.  He  replied, "  I  don't  care."  "  Do  you  know 
what  happened  to  '  Don't  Care  '  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Yes," 
was  the  answer, "  He  was  crucified  on  Calvary."  There 
is  a  deep  meaning  in  that.  For  all  who  go  out  to 
follow  truth  and  right  in  their  naked  faith  will  come 
to  a  cross,  but  there  they  will  find  Christ  and  in 
that  shadow  know  the  brightness  of  His  presence. 

Faith  is  a  rock  whose  foundations  strengthen  only 
as  we  stand  upon  it.  It  brings  its  own  certainty  only 
as  we  are  willing  to  trust  it.  We  cannot  keep  faith 
alive  by  merely  trying  to  preserve  it,  any  more  than 
we  can  keep  the  leaves  of  last  year's  summer  alive  by 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  FAITH         295 

keeping  them  in  a  glass  case.  Faith  lives  and  grows 
as  we  live  by  it  out  in  the  world.  It  awakes  at  first 
in  various  ways.  The  stirring  of  some  chance  word, 
a  mother's  love,  will  bring  it ;  most  of  all  it  awakes 
as  we  open  life  up  to  Jesus  and  listen  to  the  voices 
of  the  soul  which  rise  to  call  Him  Lord.  Have 
you  felt  the  movings  of  that  Spirit  within  ?  Go  and 
live  for  the  things  He  bids  you  stand  for  out  in  the 
world.  Stand  for  Him  through  everything,  and  one 
day  you  will  find  that  He  is  standing  beside  you. 

I  give  you  the  end  of  a  golden  string, 

Only,  wind  it  into  a  ball : 
It  will  lead  you  at  last  to  Heaven's  gatc^ 

Built  in  Jerusalem's  walL 


TRAFFIC  AND  DISCOVERY 

"They  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  and  do  business  in  great 
waters ;  these  see  the  works  of  the  Lord,  and  His  wonders  in  the 
deep." — Ps.  cvii.  23. 

This  was  a  great  confession  for  a  Jew  to  make.  By- 
nature,  he  hated  the  sea ;  there  was  nothing  of  the 
seaman  in  his  blood.  The  sea  was  his  favourite 
symbol  of  unrest ;  it  was  the  mark  of  separation 
from  his  beloved  land.  In  the  picture  of  the  perfect 
world  of  his  dream  which  came  to  John  in  Patmos, 
all  the  secret  distrust  of  his  nature  comes  out  in  one 
pregnant  line — "  And  there  was  no  more  sea." 

But  the  men  of  the  Old  Testament,  though  they 
hated  the  sea  and  never  ventured  forth  unless  they 
were  driven  by  necessity  or  drawn  by  the  lure  of 
gold,  had  to  admit  that  the  ocean  voyager  knew 
secrets  which  did  not  come  to  men  in  the  shelter  of 
their  farms  and  quiet  villages.  The  ocean  came  to 
be  looked  on  as  the  stage  for  God's  most  thrilling 
and  awesome  unfoldings.  "Thy  way  is  in  the  sea, 
and  Thy  path  is  in  the  great  waters."  They  who 
would  see  God's  work  and  wonders  at  their  best  must 
"go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  and  do  business  in 
great  waters." 

This  is  a  very  literal  truth.  The  sea  seems  to 
leave  a  special  mark  upon  the  nature  of  the  men 
who    sail    it.     There   is   something    unique   about    a 

sailor  at  his  best  which  life  in  a  cramped  world  at 

296 


TRAFFIC  AND  DISCOVERY  297 

home  is  not  able  to  produce — a  generosity,  a  charm, 
a  blithe  cheerfulness  and  ready  resource  which  are  the 
sea's  own  special  gift.  And  further,  the  sea  seems 
to  leave  its  mark  upon  the  deeper  nature  in  its 
outlook  upon  God.  Mix  with  the  fisher  folk  around 
our  shores  who  daily  battle  with  danger  to  win  the 
harvest  of  the  sea  and  you  will  often  find  a  deep 
reverence,  a  sense  of  wonder,  and  a  generous  faith, 
which  men  in  other  callings  tend  to  lose.  In  an 
article  on  the  work  of  our  fishing  fleets  during  the 
war  there  is  a  tribute  to  this  quality.  "  Nor  have 
they  forgotten,"  says  the  writer,  "  to  see  the  ancient 
works  and  wonders  in  the  deep.  Many  of  them 
drink  and  curse,  but  more  of  them  are  quiet  God- 
fearing men,  with  a  Bible  in  their  kit,  and  a  fist  of 
iron  for  the  face  of  the  wicked."  Part  of  it  is  due, 
no  doubt,  to  the  larger  field  of  experience.  The  sea 
is  never  the  same.  It  can  change  in  a  moment  from 
calm  to  storm,  from  the  glory  of  unimaginable 
beauties  which  overwhelms  the  soul  to  the  misty 
shroud  which  shuts  life  up  in  an  eerie  silence.  If 
God  is  to  reveal  Himself  fully  He  must  have  a  stage/ 
that  is  roomy  enough  for  His  grand  effects. 

But  there  is  more.  There  is  something  in  this 
voyaging  which  quickens  the  nerve  of  spiritual 
perception.  The  tragic  thing  about  a  life  of  dull 
routine  with  the  same  grey  walls  round  us,  is  that  it 
deadens  the  power  to  feel  and  see,  and  keep  our 
touch  with  God.  Some  people  never  seek  God  till 
they  are  at  the  end  of  their  own  resources.  There  is 
a  divine  conspiracy  in  life,  when  we  take  it  seriously, 
to  force  us  out  of  scepticism  into  prayer. 

And  lips  cry,   "God  be  merciful," 
Which  ne'er  cried,   "  God  be  praised." 


298  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

But  in  the  ways  of  ordinary  life  we  become  immersed 
in  things  which  never  make  any  deep  call  upon  the 
spirit.  Life  goes  past  in  the  pursuit  of  what  we  some 
day  recognize  as  shadows.  We  take  our  fill  of 
shadow  pleasure  and  tease  ourselves  with  shadow 
troubles,  till  one  day  some  big  experience  touches 
a  deeper  chord  ;  and  then 

the  dream 
Is  broken  which  had  held  us  unaware, 
And  with  a  shudder  we  feel  our  naked  soul 
In  the  great  black  world,  face  to  face  with  God. 

The  Psalmist  describes  the  experience  to  the  letter 
with  all  the  vividness  of  life  amid  a  storm  at  sea. 
"  They  reel  to  and  fro.  They  stagger  like  a  drunken 
man,  and  are  at  their  wits'  end.  Then  they  cry  unto 
the  Lord  in  their  trouble,  and  He  bringeth  them  out 
of  their  distresses.  They  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in 
ships,  and  do  business  in  great  waters;  these  see 
the  works  of  the  Lord,  and  His  wonders  in  the  deep." 
A  word  like  this  has  always  meaning  beyond  its 
literal  truth.  If  men  have  met  things  at  sea  which 
they  did  not  meet  on  land,  the  reason  is  not  that 
these  experiences  could  not  be  found  at  home,  but 
that  the  grapple  with  the  sea  awakens  the  mind 
which  can  meet  them ;  and  with  that  mind  we  can 
meet  them  anywhere.  Life  itself  is  often  spoken  of 
as  a  sea.  A  man  who  is  at  his  wits'  end  in  the 
confusions  of  ordinary  living,  will  confess  he  is  "at 
sea."  Like  the  sea,  life  has  its  mystery  of  the 
unknown,  its  changing  experiences,  its  risks  and  its 
dangers.  No  one  knows  what  may  meet  him  any 
morning,  even  without  going  a  step  from  his  own 
door — what  soul-stirring  moment,  what  tide  of  joy, 
what  wave  of  trouble.     On  this  sea  of  life  there  is 


TRAFFIC  AND  DISCOVERY  299 

one  experience  which  is  open  to  us  all,  the  crowning 
point  of  life — to  see  the  works  of  the  Lord  and  His 
wonders  in  the  deep.  But  who  are  the  men  who 
find  this  meeting  with  God  ?  Not  they  who  hug  the 
shore  or  seek  the  sheltered  haven  like  some  timid 
craft  which  fears  to  put  out  to  sea.  It  is  they  who 
hear  the  call  of  life  with  all  its  possible  risks  of  pain 
and  sorrow  and  strain  and  death,  and  go  out  facing 
life  bravely  to  take  what  comes.  But  more,  we 
must  face  life  in  the  interest  of  some  high  purpose — 
some  call  of  the  Spirit.  Plenty  of  people  meet 
life  with  a  certain  reckless  swagger,  boasting  that 
they  are  ready  to  take  what  comes  and  are  afraid  of 
nothing.  But  they  are  not  sailing  the  seas  of  life  to 
do  business.  They  are  out  on  pleasure  or  following 
the  track  of  self-interest.  And  the  point  about  such 
purposeless  voyaging  is  that  it  does  not  lead  us  into 
great  waters,  except  as  by  accident  we  happen  to  be 
caught  in  a  storm.  Many  a  man  engaged  in  what 
the  world  calls  big  business  is  sailing  very  shallow 
seas.  Selfish  interests  never  take  any  one  out  into 
great  waters.  The  selfish  man  shuns  them  and 
shrinks  from  anything  in  the  nature  of  generous  risk, 
and  so  he  misses  God,  whose  path  is  in  the  deep. 
No  man  can  find  God  save  as  he  is  going  God's  way. 
Look  in  the  Gospels  for  the  occasions  on  which  Christ 
revealed  Himself  most  wonderfully  to  the  eyes  of 
the  disciples.  It  was  in  the  places  of  strain  and 
trouble  where  they  found  themselves  because  they 
had  followed  Him,  regardless  of  risk.  One  was  a 
lonely  road,  where  two  men  walked  with  the  hope  of 
their  lives  in  ruins,  because  they  had  staked  every- 
thing on  Him.  Another  was  an  upper  room  where 
the  disciples   had   withdrawn   themselves,  expecting 


300  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

every  moment  that  the  mob  would  break  in  on  them 
with  fury  to  hale  them  forth  to  death.  Still  another 
was  a  storm  at  sea,  where  the  waves  ran  high  and 
they  were  beginning  to  think  that  everything  was 
over,  when  the  sleeping  Christ  awoke,  and  revealed 
His  power  in  works  and  wonders  on  the  deep.  Once 
Christ  came  upon  the  disciples  by  the  lake  shore  and 
found  them  dispirited  after  a  night  of  fruitless  fishing. 
His  cure  was  not  soft  words  of  comfort,  but  a  new 
challenge  to  effort.  "  Launch  out  into  the  deep,"  He 
said,  and  His  words  are  a  parable. 

Perhaps  there  are  some  of  us  whose  trouble  is  their 
narrow  acquaintance  with  the  deeper  things  of  religion. 
Many  of  the  hymns  we  sing,  it  may  be,  tell  of  dis- 
coveries we  have  never  made  and  lay  a  heavy  toll  on 
our  sincerity.  Why  is  there  so  little  depth  in  our 
adoration,  so  little  uplift  in  the  music  of  our  praise? 
There  may  be  various  reasons  for  our  disappointment. 
One  reason  may  be  that  we  are  expecting  God  to 
appear  to  us  in  some  heart-swelling  emotion  which 
will  send  us  into  ecstasy.  If  so,  it  is  well  we  are 
disappointed,  for  there  is  nothing  so  irreligious  as 
some  forms  of  what  passes  for  religious  feeling. 
God  comes  in  the  truth  made  clearer,  the  heart  made 
braver,  the  spirit  made  more  loving.  He  appears  in 
that  deeper  consciousness  of  His  love  in  Jesus  which 
changes  the  face  of  life  and  fills  the  common  sky 
with  wonder  and  gives  the  wayside  flower  the  power 
to  take  the  heart  with  beauty.  But  perhaps  we 
have  never  found  God  near  because  we  have  never 
launched  out  on  His  business  or  given  ourselves  to 
His  tide.  We  have  never  cut  ourselves  adrift  from 
the  bonds  of  calculating  prudence,  or  let  go  in  a  great 
faith  before  some  task  in  His  service. 


TRAFFIC  AND  DISCOVERY  301 

There  is  an  idea  that  religion  is  supposed  to  meet 
the  fear  of  death.  The  thing  which  religion  came  to 
meet  is  not  primarily  the  fear  of  death,  but  the  fear 
of  life.  That  is  the  fear  which  grips  some  people 
most.  They  spend  half  their  time  and  ingenuity 
making  securities  against  its  risk  and  danger  and 
keeping  out  of  the  reach  of  trouble.  One  of  the 
commonest  lines  of  comfort  when  children  die  is  to  say 
that  they  are  better  out  of  it  all,  and  we  sometimes 
pity  the  children  as  they  romp  at  play,  thinking  of 
what  awaits  them.  It  is  a  slur  upon  the  love  of  God 
who  made  us  and  put  us  here,  in  such  a  world  as 
this.  The  only  man  who  is  to  be  pitied  is  he 
who  faces  life  without  God — which  means  to  face  it 
without  a  whole-hearted  acceptance  of  some  great 
meaning  in  it  and  some  great  service  through  which 
that  meaning  becomes  vital.  Pain  and  trouble  are 
the  price  of  knowledge.  If  there  is  a  heap  of  trouble, 
there  may  also  be  an  exceeding  weight  of  glory  in 
the  cargo  we  carry  home  to  port.  Stephen  Graham 
has  a  great  phrase  describing  the  Russians  with  their 
patient  acceptance  of  all  that  comes.  "  They  have," 
he  says,  "  acquired  the  habit  of  saying  '  Yes '  to  life." 
Only  by  the  brave  and  blithesome  way  of  holding 
out  both  hands  to  life,  can  we  have  them  filled  with 
the  gold  of  the  Spirit.  "  They  that  go  down  to  the 
sea  in  ships,  and  do  business  in  great  waters ;  these 
see  the  works  of  the  Lord,  and  His  wonders  in  the 
deep." 

There  are  various  tides  which  seek  to  lure  us  out 
on  life's  ocean.  There  is  the  instinct  and  call  of  love 
which  seeks  ties  of  friendship  and  makes  us  set  up 
homes  and  undertake  responsibilities.  Very  few 
people,  I  imagine,  reflect  when  they  make  a  home,  to 


302  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

what  possible  sorrows  they  are  baring  their  hearts, 
what  wearing  hours  of  burden  and  responsibility  they 
will  have  to  meet  if  they  are  not  to  shirk  the  burden. 
Every  true  home  where  children  are  growing  up  is  a 
perfect  sea  of  adventure.  It  has  been  the  fashion 
among  some  to  look  with  a  superior  smile  upon  those 
who  are  struggling  through  life  with  the  care  of  a 
large  family,  as  if  this  loving  bondage  were  a  kind  of 
folly.  I  wonder  if  any  of  us  amid  the  inevitable 
sacrifices  of  home  and  the  harassing  cares  or  toil 
of  children  have  been  tempted  to  ask  ourselves 
whether  we  were  right  to  put  forth  on  such  an 
ocean.  This  word  is  a  great  tonic  for  such  moments. 
There  are  wonders  in  those  deeps  which  are  found 
nowhere  else.  What  light  of  heaven  is  seen  in  the 
starry  eyes  of  children !  What  sense  of  God's 
Providence  through  the  perplexing  ways!  What 
wonderful  comforting  in  the  bitter  pain!  What 
knowledge  of  the  Father  comes  through  the  sharp 
anxieties  of  the  daily  traffic  of  love !  Where  shall 
we  go  to  seek  for  God's  wonders  ? 

Let  us  go,  we  have  been  long  blind, 

To  a  place  that  is  almost  too  near  to  find, 

A  place  that  is  Heaven,  and  Heaven's  at  home. 

Mark  Rutherford  gives  us  a  picture  of  such  an 
unfolding.  His  wife  was  ill  and  everything  seemed 
hopelessly  dark.  "I  was  like  a  man  shipwrecked 
and  alone  in  a  polar  country,  whose  existence  depends 
upon  one  spark  of  fire  which  he  tries  to  cherish  left 
glimmering  in  a  handful  of  ashes."  But  he  made  his 
discovery.  For  his  step-child  who  had  been  some- 
thing of  a  trial  to  him  before,  rose  to  unexpected 
heights  of  devotion  and   seriousness  which    became 


TRAFFIC  AND  DISCOVERY  303 

to  him  nothing  less  than  a  revelation  of  God.  "  Fool 
that  I  was/'  he  says,  "  not  to  know  that  the  messages 
of  God  are  not  to  be  read  through  the  envelope  in 
which  they  are  enclosed."  How  many  people  are 
trying  to  read  God's  messages  through  a  sealed 
envelope  which  it  will  take  the  rough  hands  of  life 
to  break  open,  and  at  the  same  moment  are  shirking 
the  very  cares  or  fearing  the  very  burdens  which 
would  do  it,  unveiling  God  like  a  wind  that 
scatters  a  mist.  "They  that  go  down  to  the  sea 
in  ships,  and  do  business  in  great  waters ;  these 
see  the  works  of  the  Lord,  and  His  wonders  in  the 
deep." 

There  is  another  tide — the  tide  of  Christ's  great 
purpose  of  loving  service.  Faith  is  a  great  adventure, 
or  it  is  nothing.  Can  we  wonder  that  people  miss 
God,  whose  lives  are  filled  with  trivial  interests  which 
bring  a  host  of  trifling,  irritating  troubles  ?  There  are 
cares  that  ennoble  the  spirit  and  make  room  for  God, 
but  there  are  cares  that  shut  God  out,  cares  that 
choke  the  heart  as  grain  is  choked  with  weeds. 
The  gospel  of  Christ  is  a  great  medicine  for  care, 
but  His  way  of  dealing  with  some  cares  is  to  take 
us  into  a  world  where  these  cares  do  not  reach  us,  for 
the  spiritual  climate  does  not  breed  them.  Half  the 
troubles  of  the  world  are  born  of  petty  interests  which 
have  no  place  in  a  large  heart.  The  mind  which 
is  set  on  God's  tasks  and  "does  business  in  great 
waters  "  will  have  cares,  but  they  will  be  such  cares 
as  a  great  purpose  brings,  such  cares  as  fell  on  the 
soul  of  Jesus  in  the  shadow  of  a  Cross.  For  these 
there  is  God's  own  comforting.  His  own  wonderful 
fellowship.  Are  we  vexed  and  troubled  about  many 
things  ?     Are  they  such  cares  as  are  worthy  of  one 


304  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

who  is  living  for  Christ  ?  Are  they  such  troubles  as  we 
find  on  the  way  of  selfishness  or  on  the  way  of  faith  ? 
We  have  simply  no  right  to  the  serenity  of  faith  till 
we  have  found  our  place  in  the  adventure  of  faitht 
The  comforts  of  religion  to  a  self-seeking  life  is 
merely  a  drug  for  a  deep-seated  disease  which 
really  needs  the  surgeon's  knife.  We  cannot  expect 
to  see  God's  works  and  wonders  till  we  have 
"  launched  out  into  the  deep  "  and  are  "  doing  busi- 
ness in  the  great  waters "  of  His  service  and  His 
compassion. 

Are  we  out  for  the  Kingdom  ?  Are  we  seeking  to 
open  our  souls  to  the  troubles  and  trials  of  other 
lives?  Are  we  bearing  something  of  the  burden 
of  a  world  gone  wrong,  and  seeking  to  right  it? 
We  must  get  out  into  these  great  waters  —  the 
ocean  of  human  need  and  suffering  where  Christ 
developed  His  unique  consciousness  of  God.  Prayer 
means  nothing  to  us  till  we  know  something  of  His 
weary  soul,  strained  and  bleeding  in  a  ministry 
among  the  sick  and  suffering.  Worship  is  "a  dull 
mechanic  exercise"  to  the  man  who  has  found 
nothing  worthy  to  ask  of  God  because  he  has  done 
nothing  to  need  His  Divine  restoration.  Till  we  are 
driven  by  sheer  pressure  of  the  world's  agony  to  find 
the  power  of  God,  life  will  hold  no  miracles  of  His 
grace.  The  Book  of  Acts  is  being  continued  to-day ; 
it  is  the  one  book  in  the  world  which  is  never  finished. 
We  wonder  why  we  cannot  see  such  miracles  to-day. 
It  is  because  we  need  to  repeat  the  faith  and  the 
daring,  and  the  adventure  of  the  men  who  did  the 
acts.  Then  we  would  see  them  as  some  men  are 
seeing  them  still.  The  slums  of  London  are  alive 
with   such   works    and  wonders :    but   the  men  who 


TRAFFIC  AND  DISCOVERY  305 

see  them  are  those  who  go  down  into  these  deep 
v^aters.  General  Booth  tells  the  story  of  the  ad- 
venture of  faith  which  sent  him  there.  "  I  hungered 
for  nell,"  he  says,  as  he  went  through  these  murky 
waters.  "  1  pushed  into  the  midst  of  it,  I  loved  it 
because  of  the  souls  I  saw."  Then  he  went  home 
to  his  wife,  and  said,  "  I  have  given  myself  and  you 
and  the  children  to  the  service  of  these  sick  souls." 
That  is  the  kind  of  man  who  is  never  troubled 
by  questions  of  the  existence  of  God  ;  he  has  the 
evidences  in  his  contact  with  men  and  women  whom 
God  has  redeemed.  His  memory  is  a  Book  of  Acts. 
It  is  the  same  with  the  missionary  in  foreign  lands. 
Every  great  missionary  biography  is  a  record  of 
wonderful  deliverances  and  miraculous  providings, 
and  of  soul-moving  cases  of  degraded  and  sinful 
people  won,  and  mastered,  and  moulded  by  redeem- 
ing grace.  Read  the  description  of  Uganda  to-day 
and  Uganda  fifty  years  ago.  It  is  a  revelation  of 
the  works  and  wonders  of  the  Lord.  Why  have 
we  never  met  such  wonders  ?  Because  we  have  never 
allowed  the  love  of  God  to  carry  us  into  such 
straits.  Why  have  we  never  seen  such  miracles? 
Because  we  have  never  tackled  such  problems. 
They  belong  to  the  men  who  "  do  business  in  great 
waters." 

The  truth  is  God  needs  a  wider  stage  than  that  of 
our  individual  souls.  *'  The  field  is  the  world,"  says 
Jesus.  "  His  path  is  in  the  sea,"  says  the  Psalmist. 
To-day  the  waters  of  life  are  troubled  with  unrest 
in  every  direction.  There  are  problems  facing  us 
which  can  only  be  solved  by  faith  and  love.  Is 
the  Church  to  stand  back  from  the  critical  social 
confusions  of  our  time  and  merely  hold  the  ring  for 
20 


3o6  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

contending  parties  to  fight  it  out?  Is  she  merely  to 
be  the  umpire  accepting  the  present  rules  of  the 
game  in  international  and  industrial  matters,  or  is 
it  her  business  to  declare  the  rules  according  to  the 
mind  of  Jesus  and  insist  on  having  them  brought 
into  play  in  all  our  relations  with  one  another  ?  Is 
she  to  be  content  with  a  message  to  the  individual  ? 
It  is  in  the  individual  soul,  of  course,  that  reformations 
are  born  ;  the  new  man  makes  the  new  world.  But 
the  new  man  is  made,  in  part,  by  the  vision  of  the 
new  world  calling  to  the  depths  of  his  nature  and 
by  the  challenge  of  the  tasks  through  which  it  is 
brought  in.  For  Christianity  stands  for  a  love  to  be 
applied  to  life  in  all  its  relationships. 

These  are  deep  waters,  some  people  say.  Better 
keep  out  of  them.  You  will  get  lost  in  the  perplex- 
ing currents  of  economic  theory  for  which  you  have 
no  chart.  You  will  get  into  difficulties,  provoke  re- 
sentments, rouse  storms,  risk  rocks.  Is  the  Church 
to  hoist  the  flag  of  "  Safety  first,"  which  never  carried 
a  true  man  anywhere  except  into  a  back-water? 
The  Church  is  out  in  the  world  to  change  the  world 
She  has  something  to  say  even  in  the  region  of 
economics,  for  in  all  economics  there  is  a  human 
factor,  a  spiritual  factor,  which  needs  to  be  taken 
into  account.  Our  present  economic  theories  are 
based  upon  a  low  view  of  human  nature  and  the 
selfish  motives  by  which  it  works.  A  new  spirit 
would  change  things.  Let  the  tides  of  faith  and 
hope  lift  you  and  carry  you  ;  never  mind  where  they 
take  you.  They  will  certainly  take  us  into  deep  and 
often  bitter  waters  ;  for  that  is  where  they  carried 
Christ.  They  carried  Him  to  a  cross,  but  there  He 
revealed  the  works  and  wonders  of  the  Lord.     The 


TRAFFIC  AND  DISCOVERY  307 

Cross  is  the  method  of  God's  love  in  action,  and 
His  love  has  no  other  apocalypse  of  glory.  The 
Church  will  begin  to  conquer  the  world  when  she 
makes  the  world  hate  her  for  her  loyalty  to  Christ, 
When  she  begins  to  do  business  in  great  waters  she 
will  find  God  in  the  deep. 

But  last  of  all,  this  word  has  something  to  say  to 
us  about  the  great  adventure  of  death.  There  is  a 
Christ-created  instinct  which  tells  us*  death  is  only 
another  bit  of  the  great  voyage  of  life.  It  leads  to 
no  still  haven,  but  to  a  wider  ocean  of  unimaginable 
adventure  and  discovery.  This  is  Tennyson's  view 
of  death.  It  is  not  reaching  a  harbour,  but  putting 
out  to  sea.  (Our  thought  of  the  after-life  as  a  quiet 
harbour  is  a  view  which  has  alienated  countless  active 
and  vigorous  souls.  It  is  the  last  word  of  a  religion 
of  comfort  which  vital  souls  reject.)  And  the  fear  of 
death  is  of  the  same  nature  as  that  fear  of  life  which 
turned  Hamlet's  career  into  a  tragedy  of  indecision, 
so  that  he  would  neither  live  nor  die.  The  man  who 
in  Christ  has  mastered  the  fear  of  life  has  lost  the 
fear  of  death  because  he  knows  a  Love  who  is 
Lord  of  all  things,  making  the  unknown  spaces  a 
sphere  for  His  deeper  disclosures.  When  Christian 
in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  reached  the  great  waters  he 
was  timid  and  shrinking.  "  Be  of  good  cheer,"  cried 
Hopeful,  so  he  plucked  up  courage  and  went  on. 
'1  hen  he  brake  into  a  loud  voice.  "  Oh,  I  see  Him, 
and  He  tells  me,  '  When  thou  passest  through  the 
waters  I  will  be  with  thee;  and  through  the  rivers, 
they  shall  not  overflow  thee.' "  So  they  crossed  the 
river  and  entered  the  City  and  their  raiment  was 
transfigured,  and  all  the  bells  of  the  City  rang  for 
joy.     Do   some   of  us  fear  this  experience  for  our- 


3o8  THE  VICTORY  OF  GOD 

selves  or  for  those  who  have  gone  from  us  through 
great  waters  into  the  deep?  They  have  gone  to 
do  business  there,  and  there  they  see  the  works  and 
wonders  of  the  Lord. 

For  though  from  out  this  bourne  of  tirr\e  and  space 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face. 

When  I  have  crossed  the  bar. 


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